


Last Day Alive

by alex4968



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bottom!Harry, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, dystopian government, slight Manipulation, slight daddy kink, top!Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-24 01:06:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10730997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex4968/pseuds/alex4968
Summary: Harry Styles was born to the leader of the Following - the organization that keeps their world peaceful and just. Without the Following, the world would only return to the ways of the Old Times and all of them would come to an untimely end. Or, so he thought, until he meets Louis, the leader of the Rebellion.





	Last Day Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I'm so glad to finally be able to post this. This fic was both the bane of my existence and the best part of this challenge both at the same time, mostly because I decided to write this as my second fic in a spur of the moment, fifteen days before the draft deadline idea. This is my first year participating in the Big Bang challenge - but I certainly doubt it will be my last! I had an absolute blast (ha, ha, that rhymed) being able to write and collaborate with my artist and create this for the challenge.  
> On that note, an absolute, whole-hearted, massive, great-big, thank you to [Shyla](http://neon--diamonds.tumblr.com/) for creating such a gorgeous piece of art for this fic. Be sure to send her love!  
> It's almost bitter-sweet to finally be able to post this fic because I worked so hard on it and gave it so much love, but now I know that it's done, ready to be posted and loved by anyone else who is willing to do so. A major shout out to my pals Maggie and Melissa for putting up with me for complaining about this fic as long as I did (especially Melissa since she doesn't like b!h). 
> 
> anyyyway [here's](http://louis-love.tumblr.com/post/159989681530/last-day-alive-by-louis-love-pairing-louisharry) the fic post on tumblr (please reblog if you can!) and I hope you enjoy!

****

 

**PART ONE: The Ultimatum.**

**London District – main end. 2198.**

Each day, in and out, has always been the same for Harry. The sameness, in a way, has always helped him keep himself at peace, always helped him cope with the questions he’s had about life. Each question he finds, he’s never able to find the answer to, but in a strange way that’s always left him feeling at ease. It’s something about the way his entire life has always felt still, stuck in place and motionless, that has allowed him to trudge through each day’s responsibilities without thinking about the unanswered questions.

“Harry, come back here, please?” His mother asks with a soft smile. Her dress falls around her knee caps and flies to the left just slightly from the draft of the open windows, the cool air circulating around the room. The windows are usually open in the day times, when the air is warm enough to keep the temperatures comfortable, but Harry has always found a certain kind of pleasure from feeling the breeze on his face and the smell of the flowers from the gardens outside. There are machines that control the temperature of their manor, the same ones that close and open the windows and blinds as deemed necessary to keep it constant, which he knows is the real purpose of the windows being open, but he likes to take pleasure in little things.

The glow of the sun, hanging lower in the sky, glows yellow against the whites of the walls in his bedroom, making the blonde of his mother’s hair glow brighter in the room. He thinks this scene looks peaceful, like their family is happy and perfect, arranged and placed in just the way it should be.

“Sure.” He says with the same smile returned. He tucks his bookmark into the page he’d been reading, shuts the book, and slides it back into the bookshelf beside his desk.

“Watch your manners. Fix your shirt, as well.” She says with a pointed look, eyebrows furrowing and he sighs softly. He’d rolled his sleeves up once he’d sat at his desk, let the material hug around the bends of his elbows rather than buttoned tightly at his wrists, but as he stands and brings the material back to his hands. His shirt is white, adorned with seven blue buttons. He’d normally be wearing a tie, too, but without his presence having been requested by his father, he’d left that out for today.

“Apologies, I’ll be right there.” It’s always the same. His appearance is never allowed to falter, no matter if his presence is in front of the public eye or just that of his family. He’s always been required to follow a certain dress code, keep his posture straight, and watch his manners. But it’s just how the world goes, and he understands that. It separates his own social status from that of the rest of the world. It’s a physical representation of the barrier between his family, the family of rule, and the citizens that they are expected to have the power over. Without a certain degree of precise language, of sophistication, there would be only insignificant communication and confusion.

He understands the purpose, despite the inconvenience.

His mother does not respond to him, which feels like a violation of what he would consider proper manners, but the clicking of her heels against the tile flooring of the study he’d been reading in gives him enough notice to know she doesn’t want to wait for him to finish – she wants his presence immediately.

So, he follows. He straightens his shirt out, smoothing any wrinkles that may have been created while he was sitting, ties a tie around his neck, and re-buttons the top button of his shirt that he’d left undone with the thought of comfort while reading, and follows where he assumes his mother has gone to. When he finds her standing in the family room, her tablet in hand, he pauses. “What can I do for you, mother?” He clasps his hands behind his back, the most formal display of respect he knows he can manage.

“Your Father wanted me to tell you that your week away must be postponed.” She presses the button that projects her screen onto the white wall beside her, displaying a few pictures with text below it. He turns his gaze to the images, and immediately feels the sadness and the panic festering in his chest. The first picture is of a building completely in rubble, with smoke coming from it, and the view of a medical vehicle in the background. His heart drops to his stomach as he realizes that there must have been so much death from that incident; that there must have been so much misery that he hadn’t even been aware of.

Being aware of the world around him is, in a way, the largest paradox of his existence. He’s expected to be aware of the things that are happening, yet most recent events are confidential information that must be passed through his father before he can see it. He understands that it is put in place to ensure that no information that is meant to be seen by anyone other than his father is seen, but he has never understood how he is meant to keep up with the events around him while being sheltered from them.

The second is of one of the men they had taken into custody under charges of the terrorism. Three of them. There are bags over their heads, and restraints over their wrists, gloved hands the clear focus of the image. “There is currently a warning set in place for high levels of Rebellion activity. We cannot have you leaving the house with such prominent danger.” He tries not to let himself feel disappointed with that, but he nods.

“Yes, of course. I understand.” He swallows hard. “Would you send that article to me, please? I’d like to have a look at it if I may.” She gives him a pointed look, her lips just ever so slightly pursed.

“Of course.” His watch beeps on his wrist, alerting him to a new attachment on his own tablet. “Don’t forget that you are to spend an hour with your Father in his study this afternoon, and Dinner Meal will be shortly after that.”

“Yes, mother. Can I do anything else for you?”

“No, thank you.” He nods and walks away, back up the stairs that lead to his study. His heart aches as he thinks about all the lives that were lost from a senseless rebellious attack – all the families that will be destroyed from the lives lost.

He doesn’t open the attachment, the sadness already deep in his heart just from the thought of those poor people, but he continues reading on with his history books. After he’d graduated from College, his Father had demanded that he continue doing private studies in both history and politics, both pre-war and post. Most pre-war subjects aren’t taught or accessible to the public, just because of the horrible realities that were in place before the Following took power.

Information that is deemed safe for public viewing is broadcasted every night through their tablets, with mandatory viewing. The programs usually just discuss the shortened version of how the world was war ridden, disease filled, and terribly overpopulated. How the people who lived then, if they continued the path they were on, were only expected to be able to remain safely on Earth for 75 more years.

Even reading about how terrible the lives of those who lived before him often gives Harry a stomach ache from the guilt for those people. All the war, the death, the criminalization, the way some people were considered lesser because of their appearances. None of it makes sense, and he’s certainly never understood why the Rebellion would ever want the world to go back to those times.

His tablet alerts him that it is time for him to meet with his Father in his study. Today, they’re meant to discuss pre-war politics from Europe. He’s read shortly about it, how there were queens and kings but how they held little political power. It’s all rather confusing, but learning the history of the land they live on has always been interesting to him.

 

When they come together at their Dinner Meal, they all sit at the table for a few moments in silence, as usual, before each scanning a thumb print on the sensors at their seats. “Would you like to lead tonight, Harry?” His Father says, a napkin clutched closely in his hand. He folds it tightly in his palm to conceal the speckles of blood that come up with each of the coughs that rack his body, but Harry tries not to notice that anymore.

“Yes, Father.” He says with a soft smile before placing both of his palms face down on the table, watching as each of them do the same. “May the Following grant us another night of safety.”

“May the Following grant us another night of safety.” His Mother and Father both echo behind him. As soon as their pledge is said, each of their meals come from the dispenser in the center of their dining room table. Father’s first – as usual – then Harry’s, then his mothers. They each take their respective dishes and the drinks that come with them and eat in the same silence that envelops them every night at Dinner Meal.

 

It’s almost a month later when Harry is slowly losing his desire to even go on his little road trip. He’s almost abandoned the idea when his mother comes into his room, right before the sleeping hours have started, and has a small smile on her face. “Your Father said that the threat has been taken care of. You’re safe to leave on your trip in the morning, if you are still intending to go.” He blinks a few times, just to ensure he’s heard her correctly before he smiles.

“Thank you, mother. I will be leaving in the morning. I appreciate you telling me.”

“Of course, son. Be sure you have everything you need packed away. I’ll give you something to give to Liam when you reach him, as well.”

“Thank you.” She nods in response before leaving his room, closing the door tightly behind her. Harry grins and does a little dance as soon as she’s out of the room, then laughs at himself for as foolish as he probably looks, but gets into bed with a grin on his face.

 

Wind whips the trees around Harry’s home, leaves rustling and breaking from the branches and fluttering away with it and falling to the ground. The sun is bright in the mid-day sky, lighting everything on the property in a yellowish haze that brought to life the illusion of happiness within the Styles manor. By morning, the lawn-bots will have brushed away each speck of imperfection and each leaf will no longer be resting against the slow-dying dim greens of the lawn grass, so he likes to take it all in while he can. The mornings are his favorite time of the day. Each moment of imperfection gives way to the reality that there is life within the manner, not just another set of robots following a coded set of conduct.

As much as the sameness of life within the manor, the stillness and strict rules bring peace to an otherwise havoc-filled life, brings him happiness, he enjoys the ambiguity that comes with being out in the world. He knows that each family follows the same rules and patterns that he does, but it’s just the simplest thought of the slightest differences in dynamic between each family of the world that fuels the desire he must explore.

Other than the few moments of imperfection, there aren’t many other clues to the life Harry lives on the inside. In the public’s eye, Harry doesn’t even exist. He was a boy, born to a rich family and celebrated for the first year of life, and then forgotten. He was real to the six peers that joined him from his primary years of school until they were each given their own private tutors for college. To the rest of the world, he’s an anomaly. He’s the hidden figure that will one day take the rule of the Following.

He puffs out a shallow breath, watches as the air turns to fog just for a short moment from the wintery chill, then floats away into the sky. He stares to the front of his own home for another moment, a sight he’s seen only a few times in his entire life. His entire childhood had been spent behind high fences in the safety of the back property of the manor. The off-white paint that adorned the front of the house contrasted against the tan colors surrounding the windows – leaving it with a vintage feeling that attempts to leave a feeling of home while still boasting of the powerful men living within the walls.

He’d always thought it was unwise to have such a clear show of how powerful his family was – had always waited for the day that they’d be targeted by the people who hate them the most and it would all come crashing down around them – but his worrying never came true. The rebels had rarely entered the London District, either because they are too aware of the increased police force or a lack of planning, but Harry’s grateful for the safety. His Father may not be the humblest figure, but he’s wise beyond what Harry enjoys giving him credit for.

It’s been far too long since Harry has step foot off the Styles’ property and his entire body is buzzing with the mere thought of being able to drive away, to have the freedom of speeding down the open road without worrying about his Father’s opinion hanging over his head. The last time he was permitted to leave, it was with four armed men and his Father at his side as they travelled down to Manchester District to visit with his sister. That’s, supposedly, what he’s been told to do for the week he’s been given his freedom, but he hasn’t decided if he will or not.

For one week, he’s free. Free of rules, free of pressure, free of his family.

Gemma is the only person he feels is on his side, some days. She’d left the manor the day she turned of age and never once came back. She’d changed her name to avoid being targeted, and with her name change came the end of her being a part of their family. Harry hadn’t ever understood why until he was a little older, old enough to understand the real implications that came with being the oldest child, but she’d shucked those responsibilities off on Harry with only a flimsy apology. He did understand now, though, and he doubts that if he was given the chance he wouldn’t do the same thing.

He believes entirely in the Following, with every fiber of his being, but sometimes the pressure is just too much. There are so many times he wishes he could just be a normal citizen, just follow the rules and blend in among everyone else. It will never be his reality, and he knows that, but he can dream. As much as Mother would say that dreams are pointless and will only lead to disappointment, it’s the one thing she can’t correct if she doesn’t know about it.

He’s not going to think about that, though. Not today, not tomorrow, not until he’s back within the borders of this manor and forced back into the little box of learning to lead.

A member of his staff drives his car up to the front of the manor and steps out, gives a nod of acknowledgement before stepping away. Harry’s met him before, always tried to talk to him as a child before his mother would chastise him with a slap against the hand. There are very few manual laborers in the world now, mostly replaced with technological enhancements that can do the same job more quickly and more efficiently, but the few that do exist are usually the outcome of punishment.

Supposedly, this one had had his tongue cut off after burning his finger prints away and telling others to do the same. It’s the highest form of treason, yet when given the choice to work for and show loyalty to his Father or spend his life in prison, he chose to work for him. Some things, his Father has told him throughout his life, have followed their society into the new world. Treason and betrayal being something that is just deeply rooted within humans, to desire to be better than everyone else, to have a say. It’s rare now since the Following has helped to show everyone that there is no need for it, but those few who do decide to hand over their lives with the threat of treason are not taken with light action.

The worker walks away, back towards the car garage, as soon as Harry returns his acknowledging nod. Once he’d learned the truth of why that man never spoke, he’d always felt a pang of guilt whenever he attempted to speak around him. Something about flaunting what he has that others do not has never felt good to him.

He presses his finger print against the scanner and watches as the green light reads each individual line against his skin, taking his identity through the confirmation server to be sure that it is him attempting to get in his car. It takes about three seconds before it flashes green and the door to his car unlocks. “ _Welcome, Mr. Styles.”_ The faux-human voice of his car says as he takes his seat inside. The screen to his navigation appears in front of the automatic steering and he swipes left, ridding of the screen for the car to take him where he desires. He’ll likely re-activate the self-driving later, but it’s been far too long since he’s been properly behind a wheel, the feeling of freedom coursing through his veins. “ _Are you sure you want to deactivate PATS at this time?”_ The voice says. The _Personal Automobile Travelling System_ has always been around during his lifetime, but it’s rare he uses it. He was taught to drive manually as an emergency feature, something he should only need should his PATS fail, but he loves the feeling of driving. Loves the freedom that comes with it.

“Yes, deactivate.” He says and watches as the screen fades, only to be replaced on the dashboard with the speedometer and locator. He straps his safety belt and looks over his shoulder as he turns the car around, then speeds out of his manor’s driveway.

In his rear-view mirror, he can see his mother watching him from her upstairs window, likely worried he won’t return in the week he’s promised he would, but he doesn’t let himself feel guilty. If he feels guilty, he won’t be able to go. Gemma had set that anxiety into his mother, not him. He’d stop the car and turn around and make his mum a cup of tea, if the guilt got to him, just to promise her he’s still around and everything will be all right. He’s not Gemma. He’ll be back.

 _“Harry, you know it’s not safe. I don’t understand why you are so determined to go out on your own.”_ His Father would say and shake his head in shame every time Harry would ask to go _anywhere_ unescorted, while his mother would stand on the side and just nod her head in agreement. It always made him feel like a child in the worst way – until finally they’d gotten in such a heated fight that Harry had forced him to taste the reality that he wasn’t going to be a kid forever – he’s twenty years old and he has no reason to be afraid of the world he’s going to run one day. The Following will grant him enough protection – as long as he stays away from the areas where there has been known Rebellion activity.

A part of him is tired of being _Harry Styles_ and having every amenity thrown in his face just because of his name. Every whim and every desire is granted for him the moment he voices it and it’s been the same way ever since he was a child. It was a luxury as a child, showing off to his friends how he can get anything he wants, but when he’d realized that it was at the expense of someone else, he no longer enjoyed it. The Following grants equality among the people, but he’s never felt equal. In one way or another, he’s always felt as if he was placed on a pedestal, never considered as just one of everyone else.

His childhood was a time he remembers so clearly. The ignorance he’d had against what his life was and was to become was truly blissful in every way. He can still remember the days he and Zayn would play together because neither of them understood the social hierarchy that _should_ have kept them apart. Every part of the Following says that those who are anticipated to work in the Labor Field shouldn’t become closely intertwined with those who are meant to be in any kind of intellectual field, but it wasn’t yet engraved into his brain that their friendship wasn’t considered correct. It’s a bit of a shame when he thinks about it – how many experiences and friendships he had to let go of because of his title and responsibilities.

But Zayn never went away.

He can remember so clearly when his Father told him that he and Zayn’s friendship needed to be put to an end. He’d cried for days and days, so much that his body had become ill with sickness. The doctors that his Father had hired to aid to him all said that it was a mental illness – something that couldn’t be changed with physical remedies other than some kind of medication that would have to be re-made from the Old Times.

Mental illnesses were entirely eliminated after the Following was established. People were all happy – each job was tailored to their desires and each person in their respective jobs were all given the proper number of hours in each day to rest and recharge. So, after that diagnoses had been made, his Father allowed Zayn back into his life.

He doesn’t much like to think about that – about the horribly shameful looks his Father had given him for months and months after, but when he does think about it, he can only feel the gratefulness that he has for still having Zayn.

Moments like these, however, are the moments he misses Zayn the most. Zayn had always been his closest friend; someone he could confide to in ways he couldn’t to anyone else. There were no secrets in his family, but Zayn always seemed to understand things before he even had to say them.

Before he’d had to move away, they’d spent nearly every moment together. But as the years went on and the distance seemed to grow further, their friendship dwindled down to the occasional well-wished message.

“PATS, navigate to Yorkshire District, east end. Liam Payne’s home.” He says and watches as the screen disappears, then reappears on the opposite side of the car with directions to where he’s asked to go. The navigation system tells his Father exactly where he is at all times, but he knows that’s just a safety precaution. Learning to turn it off could have been considered an act of rebellion, technically, but when he was young and reckless, he hadn’t put much thought into that.

Now that he’s older, he knows not to turn it off. Instead, he knows it’s best for his Father to know where he is, just in case. Whenever he’d wanted to go to Zayn’s house on the rare occasion he’d be allowed to, he’d have to have his driver take him to Liam’s and then sneak away to Zayn’s sometime during the day, and that was the only exception to that.

His Father hated the idea of him being close to Zayn and he still does, but Harry doesn’t like to think about that.

Liam, a friend he’d met through Zayn, was always another story. He had status, enough that Harry’s Father didn’t place contempt on their friendship, so they’d always been close. Perhaps they bonded out of a mutual love of Zayn, or maybe it was something else. But Liam had quickly become, and stayed, a close friend.

He tries not to think of these things, the little mundane realities of having status in his life, or else he’ll put a negative tone to his own mood. He tells PATS to play the top 40 music from the early 2100s, his favorite era of music, and drives.

 

The idea comes to him when the navigation system tells him to turn left and he accidentally takes the turn before he’s supposed to. On that turn, there’s a long stretch of road with about a dozen windmills somewhere down in the distance, so he just _goes._

It’s the outlands – the only place in the entire world where citizens are entirely, wholly forbidden from going out to. He knows not to drive out too far or else there will be radiation that could kill him, still active and dangerous from the wars, but he can’t help the desire deep in his chest that is telling him to just drive as fast as he can make his car go.

He turns his car’s systems off, ignoring the terrible thoughts of how he is acting like a rebel, just to escape entirely for a few minutes, and drives down the emptiness that is that road as fast as he can. It’s straight – perfectly visible for as far as he can see, and he doesn’t see himself in any immediate danger, so he just goes and goes and, for the first time, he feels like he can _breathe._ He takes a deep breath and lets himself feel the _whoosh_ of the air speeding past him at two-hundred kilometers an hour and smiles as he goes.

Liam had gone to college for engineering, during which he’d showed him how to turn the navigation off in his car all while making it appear he’s on the course he had been on. Liam, being three years older than Harry, had always been some sort of a brotherly figure to him. Someone he found himself looking up to, even in their moments of mischief. Most of that ended as they both matured and fell into the roles that would soon be their adult lives, but thinking back to those innocent little laugh-filled moments always seems to bring a smile to Harry’s face.

The road is free of cars other than his own and it’s a sight he’s never seen before. The desolation reminds him that he’s not intended to be out here – and it makes his heart pound faster in his chest. He feels alone in the best way he could ever imagine – perfectly alone with just enough space between him and his life that he can think his own thoughts. It’s liberating, yet terrifying.

Eventually, he pulls the car to a stop and steps out to the side of the road. His legs feel numb and just a little tingly as he steps out from being bunched up in the same position for all the hours that he’d been driving, and he lets himself take a look around.

The grass is yellowing, even if it’s mid spring, but the windmills are turning. A patch of purple flowers grows thick in the distance, and he looks at them with a smile as the wind whips his hair into his face. The nature surrounding him here makes him feel at ease – the loneliness and isolation that he feels around him is empowering. He takes a deep breath and looks up to the sky.

There’s a thick cloud of smog somewhere off in the distance where, he assumes, a rare remaining fossil fuel factory remains, ruining their finally-breathable air. Most of their energy is created by solar power now, taking the energy from the sun and allowing them all to live without ruining the world around them.

He remembers the stories of when there was so much pollution in the world that humans would die from repertory disease and had to wear masks just to walk the streets. When people had to be concerned about whether their water was considered safe or not.

He looks out along the flatness of the land around him and envisions men standing in each other’s faces with guns pointed at one another and feels ill with the thought of it. The stories of the great wars, the wars where the world nearly ended with the nuclear blasts in the Old Americas. Those are the stories all the children are brought up with – the memories firm and clear in each of their heads because everyone knows that they don’t want that again. That’s why the system works. He knows that, logically. He really does.

He knows that his Father is trying to do well to the world no matter how much he doesn’t always enjoy being around him. He can imagine that having the responsibility of keeping the world safe would make anyone bitter in a way.

Those are the moments he thinks that he’s lucky to live in this world, to have all their modern amenities that people then didn’t have.

Instead of letting himself think about that, though, he gets back in his car and starts driving again, back towards the route he was meant to be on. The guilt is firm in his chest for breaking the rules and his hands are nearly shaking as he drives and drives until, finally, the main road comes back in sight. The rules are only put in place to keep them safe, yet he can’t help the underlying urge to break them, to feel free. The Following is good, he reminds himself.

He breathes out a sigh of relief as he pulls back into the flow of traffic. “May the Following allow me a safe journey.” He mumbles under his breath as he drives.

 

**  
**

**Cambridge District - North East end.**

It’s a few hours of listening to music and driving down the road before he realizes there’s a warning light blinking on his dashboard. He’d muted the system again after it kept barking orders at him, telling him he was going two kilometers an hour over the speed limit every few minutes. His eyes widen as the automatic driving system takes over, locks the steering wheel and directs the car to the nearest charging station.

There’s only one thing that Harry’s heard about the world that’s terrified him. It’s always been the number of rebels that live here. There are so many that the Following had deployed more Peace Control Officers here, nearly one for every three citizens, but it didn’t do much of anything to stop them.

“No, no, no, not here. Please.” Harry says, eyes widening as his car flashes at him once again. It’s not that he’s _scared_ of this area – but he’s certainly heard of the not-so-friendly reputation that comes with this district and he’s analyzed the crime rates of it more than enough times in his lifetime to know that he liability of something happening to him is about six percent greater than something _not_ happening to him.

So, perhaps fearing this area would be the proper word.

He licks his lips and puts his sunglasses on as it pulls into a charge station – the one closest to the window of the building luckily – and sighs. His heart is beating a bit faster in his chest, but he ignores it. If he looks as nervous as he is, it’ll only make him appear to be an easier target. That’s something he cannot afford.

There are five other cars at this same station, but he just has to convince himself that nothing bad is going to happen. He’s surrounded by people who would hopefully be witnesses if anything were to happen, anyway. Besides. No one knows him. No one will know who he is so long as he doesn’t tell them.

So, he steps out, locks the doors, and scans his thumb print against the scanner. It glows blue for a moment, the tell-tell sign that it’s reading his print, before it flashes red and buzzes at him. His eyebrows furrow in confusion, palms suddenly feeling sweatier. He looks around; no one is looking at him strange, so he thinks he’s safe. He tries again, silently praying that it will just read and he can get out of here.

He’s never had to work with such an out dated scanner. All the ones in his home are updated with each few months as new software is developed and released to the public. This one appears to be one of the oldest models, but he would think that it could still be considered effective, no matter it’s age.

It flashes red at him again and Harry suddenly feels ill. An older woman is giving him a skeptical look, now, and he thinks maybe he has enough of a charge to drive to the next station – but it would be so much worse to be _broken down_ in this area than just to go and ask for a bit of help. Besides, he’s not sure his Father would have allowed an override in the system to continue travelling on a near empty charge.

“That one can be a bit tricky.” A high pitched, airy voice says from behind him and Harry jumps. He wasn’t expecting to be approached. The voice laughs and he’s scared, but he turns around anyway. “It’s one of the first gen scanners, so you gotta kind of like,”

The boy – when he looks at him – looks dangerous in every definition of the word. His ice colored eyes could dig through his soul, he thinks, and his greaser jacket adds to it. The light breeze makes the quaff of his hair sway just slightly, and Harry thinks he could look at him all day if he was allowed. He grabs Harry’s hand and Harry just – he lets him. He’s a bit too startled to move as the boy puts a hard pressure on his own finger on the scanner, tilted slightly to the left. He has a glove on his hand and the material is warm against Harry’s skin, but he doesn’t want to think about that, he doesn’t want to think about the fact that he’s interacting with a rebel. He would only panic if he did that.

Something about the way he speaks captures Harry’s attention in a way no one ever has before, though. Something about the way he seems to entirely ignore the precision of language he’s been brought up with and how he has this little sideways smile on his face.

He knows that his Father has been trying to set him up with several people throughout the last year, but no one has ever interested him. He’d always considered himself somewhat of an aromantic type, someone who just wasn’t interested in spending his life with anyone.

The scanner flashes green and Harry is entirely at a loss for words as he’s brought back into the situation playing out around him. “I um – thank you.” He says in place of a half decent sentence.  He slides the slider bar over that charges him for a full battery and presses accept on the price. His watch pings with a notification in the change of his bank value, but he doesn’t bother checking. Blue-eyes is still watching him, but with a different expression in his eyes.

“So, do tell me why you’re around these parts, then? You look like a lost lamb.” His voice is teasing, a sly smirk still playing at the edge of his lips. Harry nearly squawks, _wants_ to fight that, but he knows he’s right. So he just laughs a bit in agreement.

“I meant to drive through to where I am going. I didn’t realize how low my battery was.” He says with a soft smile, unsure what else there is to say to this boy.

“Shame.” Is all he says. “Have a good drive, then.” It’s a dismissal and he’s not sure why, but he takes it as a challenge. There are only two people in his life that have ever properly been allowed to _dismiss_ Harry – being his parents – and he doesn’t take lightly to it. The idea of being told he’s no longer needed in a conversation doesn’t settle well in his stomach; but perhaps that’s just the feeling of rejection in general.

Harry knows he should let him go, he really does. But he doesn’t – he doesn’t _want_ to. This is the first time he’s had any kind of unrestricted freedom and he wants to make the most of it. If this rebel isn’t showing him immediate danger, why should he be afraid? Even if that means he’s speaking to someone who looks like he could slit his throat with a single gaze. It’s _exciting_. His heart is beating faster; his palms feel damp with sweat, but even as he speaks, he keeps his voice level.

“Why is it a shame?” Scary boy turns back to him with a quirked eyebrow and the same, overdramatic smirk on his face that makes Harry’s knees feel a little weak.

“These parts can be quite fun when you have the right person to show you around. I think it would be quite fun to watch you get a bit less… terrified. But it’s all right, curly. You go on your drive. You don’t quite seem like you’d fit in in these parts anyhow.” Harry makes an offended noise and crosses his arms. This captures the other boy’s attention further, makes him turn completely around and mimic Harry’s crossed arms as he quirks an eyebrow once again.

He has dark blue-jeans on that seem to be smudged with some kind of black grease, perhaps from working on a car in the shop that seems to be on the side of the station, and his hair frames around his face, making his jawline seem stronger. His lips are clearly bitten raw, yet Harry can’t help but think about how soft they still look.

“You can’t say I don’t fit in here! You’ve just met me.” Harry defends weakly, but even he knows how untrue his words sound. They sound different on every level of the world. This boy sounds like he hasn’t been raised with the same formalities that Harry has – hasn’t been brought up with the same idea of behaviors or mannerisms – or maybe he just grew out of it. But just from the way they speak, he can tell that that is the reason this man can tell he doesn’t belong in this part of the city.

“You’re wearing sunglasses in overcast to be unrecognized, your body language screams how afraid you are, you’ve got a 2300 pound messenger bag in the backseat of your car. Should I go on?” Harry’s face feels hot – maybe from embarrassment or maybe he likes being called out.

“Please go on. I’d like to see what more you can get from me just from looking.” Blue-eyes crosses his arms, the same smirk playing on his face as he looks Harry over once again.

“You’ve got money. Quite a bit of it, too. You’re used to high class things and being here makes you feel uncomfortable and unsure, because you’ve never been in a situation like this before. Especially not in a situation where a stranger has the upper hand over you and that alone makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it, Curly?” Harry has to blink. This kid is – weird. But he just shrugs, instead, trying to keep his appearance nonchalant. “You don’t like your money, though, so you don’t flaunt it. You’ve not got the newest model car and you don’t wear Gucci clothes. I’m also willing to bet this is the farthest from home you’ve ever been.”

“You’re not entirely correct.” Harry says because he’s not. Mostly, but not _entirely_. “But it is interesting how quickly you were able to pick up on several things.”

“Comes from living around these parts long ‘nough.” He says with another grin, uncrossing his arms from his chest as his eyes flick over Harry’s body. It makes the tips of his ears redden with heat, tinting his cheeks as well. “So, curly, you going to leave now? Your car’s been charged for almost three full minutes.”

“You don’t have to call me Curly. My name is Harry.” Blue-eyes smiles, the look replacing his smirk. It makes Harry’s heart skip a beat a moment, but he still tries not to show it.  

“I think I’ll stick with Curly, I can tell you like it.” Harry feels another wave of heat rush to his face and he stammers, trying to come up with a response but he’s beat to it. “As much as I’d love to stick around and chat, I’ve got things to do. As I’m sure you do as well. It was lovely meeting you.” Harry lets him go this time, no matter how disappointed he feels.

The security bot attached to the top of the charging station’s lens gets wider, the tell-tale sign that it’s zoomed in on Harry’s face. He’s certain his Father will find out it’s him one way or another, or maybe a peace control officer will find him and reprimand him for wearing sunglasses outside of his car. It’s one of the rules put in place for citizen’s safety. He takes them off his face, just long enough to look into the camera – the only way he knows that the rule isn’t being broken – and then places them back over his eyes.

He scans his thumb print to get into his car and – thankfully – it doesn’t flash red at him. With a quick check of his phone, he sees a message from his Father that says _remember: you’re the example, son._ It sends a shiver up his spine just from the sheer speed of his Father finding him on the cameras. He sets it on the passenger side of the car, face down, and sighs softly.

He glances once into his rear-view mirror to see that the boy is gone – so he drives away.  

 

He’s tired when he pulls into the parking lot of a hotel. A quick search on his mobile tells him it’s decently rated – no bed bugs and no break-ins in the last ten years – so he feels a bit more at ease when he checks himself into one of the suits on the top floor and sets his things down. He sets his shoes down at the door and takes off his jacket, places it on a hanger, and sticks it in the closet.

The carpet of the hotel room feels nice against his sock-covered feet, but he knows he needs a shower more than anything. So he strips of his clothes, folds them up, and places them inside of the box designated for the laundry-bot to come and take. They’ll be clean by the time he’s finished showering, so he turns the water on, turns the temperature to the second-to-highest setting, and steps under the stream.

The timer on the wall displays a bold 12:43 in red lettering, counting down slowly the minutes he has left of water flow. It’s a good thing – he knows that – to have restricted water usage. For this year, the time limit on showers has been thirteen minutes, since the population declined slightly. He’s happy enough to have two minutes longer than the last three years, and just turns away and tries not to focus on it.

It’s saving the world, one little rule at a time. He places his thumb against the dispenser for the shampoo, watches as it reads his print and dispenses the quality that he can afford from his identification, and places his palm beneath the dispenser to get it. It smells nice, like apples.

He does the same thing with his conditioner and soap, then stands under the water and just lets it run over him. The water pressure is strong enough to feel relaxing, but before long, the three-beep signal that he has thirty seconds left signals, so he scrubs his fingers through his hair one last time and gets ready to have to get out.

Without really thinking, he towel dries himself off and dries his hair before tying it up into a bun and grabbing his clothes from the same bin he’d placed them in. After pulling them on, he pads back out into the sleeping area, appreciating the feeling of being able to relax more now that he’s clean.

He collapses on the bed and stares at the still-off T.V before he realizes this is not – this is _not_ why he left home. There’s the same advert that plays on the television every fifteen minutes, the one with his Father speaking about the horrors of the world _before,_ when he turns the device off.

 He didn’t leave home to go on a road trip and live the same life he’s been living for twenty years in a different, yet strikingly similar setting. This time away from home was meant to be able to experience a life outside of his own, not one-hundred-percent rated hotels and more staff waiting on him. It’s unsettling how easily he just falls into the posh, money filled life that he never even asked for. He doesn’t want that – not this week. He has one week where he can separate himself from it and that’s all he wants to do.

So, he calls Zayn. He calls him on the hotel phone, just so his Father doesn’t overhear his conversation right away, and waits.

He’s the only person Harry knows he can trust with these somewhat self-destructive thoughts of wanting to have fun _and_ be able to have some kind of fun with him. Zayn has always somehow gravitated towards the fun things happening in the world, always been invited and crawled back to the real world in the latest hours of the morning.

He doesn’t pick up until the fifth ring, right before Harry’s about to put the phone down, and he answers, but there’s loud laughing in the background that makes Harry smile. Something about being right like that makes a sense of satisfaction twist in his stomach. “One sec.I gotta – let me go somewhere quieter.” It takes about a minute and a half before there’s silence and Zayn speaks again. “Who’s this?” He asks, voice a bit firmer in the quieter setting. “How’d you get this number?” He almost sounds defensive, which isn’t something Harry’s ever heard from Zayn – but he figures that it’s appropriate for being called on an unfamiliar number.

“Hi Zayn, it’s Harry.”

“Hi!” He stars with, his tone immediately happier and brighter, “What’s going on?”

“Can we spend some time together?” He blurts out – the words coming out faster than he intended them to. Zayn laughs – but he knows he’s not laughing at him, he’s laughing at the idea of it. They’ve seen each other in person a grand total of eight times in the last two years. It’s not enough to really hold on to a strong friendship, but they managed to do it.

“Your old man finally let you off your leash, then?” It’s a loaded question – something Harry would normally swat at him for with the fear that he could be charged with treason - and it makes Harry’s stomach twist. His Father has never liked Zayn, but after he’d turned of age and had to start focusing on his career, he’d found even more distaste with the fact that Harry still wanted him in his life. Harry, by mistake, had even told his Father he was going to put Zayn into a position of power one day.

That was the week his Father beat him blue and left him in his room with nothing but water. He’s still not sure where that hostility came from or why it was necessary – mostly because he’s never seen Zayn as a threat – but he’d taken the message well enough. He was not allowed to speak about Zayn in front of his father after that. Never.

“I suppose so. I was allowed to leave the house for the next week.” He says with a grin, a little laugh coming from his mouth. He’s certain someone is listening on the other end of the line, most likely his Father’s assistant, but he’s not going to pay any attention to that. They likely don’t know who he is yet, or if they do, they probably don’t care enough to have told him just yet. Someone’s always listening – he knows that – but his mobile hasn’t lit up with another reprimanding message, so he doesn’t want to care about that.

“I’m sorry, I thought I was on the phone with my best mate, Harry. Are you sure this is him? I think you’ve got the wrong number.” Harry laughs and rolls his eyes. It’s kind of sad how much Zayn is in disbelief that he’s not home – but he can’t blame him. He just doesn’t want to have that be his life anymore. He wants to get out. Wants to have a life.

“I know I kind of fell of the face of the planet for a while.” He says. There’s an apology in there somewhere, but he knows Zayn well enough to know he doesn’t want to hear it. “But I miss you loads.”

“Well, how’s tomorrow then? I’m at a bit of a, erm, get together, now. I don’t think that’s quite your scene.” Harry frowns.

“No, maybe it’s not _Harry Styles_ ’ scene, but this week it is. I want – I want to do everything I’ll never be able to do again.” He can practically hear the cogs turning in Zayn’s head, then there’s a sigh. He smiles again because he knows he’s won. It’s never taken much convincing to get Zayn to help him get himself in trouble, but that’s probably because Harry’s always taken the fall for the both of them, not just himself.

“Put your hair up in that headband thing. Oh, and wear some kind of inexpensive skinnies. Preferably a black shirt.”

“What’s all this about?” He asks, eyebrow quirked. Zayn’s never told him what to wear before.

“Well, you’ve got to fit in one way or another. At least it should be style wise. And don’t bring anything that anyone will want to steal.” Harry can work with that.

“I’m like thirty minutes out of the Cambridge District, you’re not all the way in –“

“Wait, you’re – you’re in _Cambridge_?”

“Well, I was earlier. Yes.”

“Wonderful. I’ll pick you up, then.” Harry’s eyebrows shoot up. “Text me the address and I’ll be there.” Zayn ends the call, then, and Harry sends him the name of his hotel. He sits up in bed quickly and tugs himself out of his usual clothing that he’d been wearing when he left home and tosses on a pair of jeans and a regular, black shirt. It’s another button up – still not as informal as he’s sure Zayn had intended for him to be in, but it’s all he has. This is the first time he’s ever going to be so far away _and_ be able to have fun, so he’s beyond excited.

 

 

The _get together_ is actually a full-blown party – as it goes. The room is lit up in a light shade of pink – white lights moving about the walls. There are people standing about the edges of the walls and there are people on the floor, dancing to the beat of the quick-paced song blasting through the speakers.

Everyone has gloves on, he realizes, and it’s almost terrifying because that means something illegal is going on. In all of the videos and documentaries he’s seen, anything involving gloves meant that there was danger. He’d been told over and over his entire life that anyone who covered their hands, who covered that form of their identification, was a criminal. His heart jackrabbits in his chest just a moment because here he is, blending in with the crowd, gloves tight against his fingertips.

But he’s not here to worry about that – he’s worried about having fun. For one night, he doesn’t want to have his Father’s voice in his head. He doesn’t want to follow all of the rules. One night is all he needs – just enough time to let loose and not worry about the crushing pressure that inheriting his power has. One night to let himself live the life lavish enough to not let the government know of it – to not let his Father know of it.

“Take these.” Zayn shouts into his ear over the music and picks up a pair of leather gloves from a box near the door. Harry thinks about it a moment – the second he puts the gloves on he’s breaking the law. He can’t – he can’t go and break the laws, can he? “If you want me to take you back, I can, H. But you need to put those on if you want to stay.” Zayn slips his own pair on and Harry nods.

His heart is pounding as he slides the material over his hands, the sweatiness of his palms making the cloth stick to his skin. He’s nervous – terrified of getting caught – but he’s not a part of the rebellion. He’s not. Breaking one rule doesn’t classify him as such, right?

He’s not here for nothing.

Zayn leads him to a set of stairs and walks up with ease. Somewhere on the bottom floor the bass drops in the song and the pink shade of the room fades to more of a purple color.

The upstairs is quieter, only filled with the light thrum of the music from downstairs, but it’s muted. “This is where most of the real fun happens,” Zayn says as he takes him into a room. There’s probably a dozen people sitting about, almost all of them with red cups in their hands. There’s a loud, high pitched and breathy laugh somewhere further down the hall, but Zayn pays no attention to it. Instead, he’s led into a smaller room with a well-lived-on brown couch and several people sitting on it.

“Zayn! You’re back!” A red head on the left couch of the room says loudly and everyone’s attention turns to the two of them. He feels all of their eyes on him, suddenly, and the anxiety wells up. The anxiety of being noticed is something he always faces when he’s in public – but this feels much more overwhelming than usual. The Leader’s son breaking the law would make headlines faster than he could speak a word of defense.

“Guys, this is me best mate, Harry. He needed a lift.” Over the years, he can tell that Zayn has lost his touch that being raised beside Harry had given him. He no longer speaks in the same way and certainly doesn’t behave in the same way, but Harry doesn’t think too much about how Zayn has changed. He doesn’t want to watch as his friend moves on and becomes his own person while he stays in the shadow of his title.

“Good on you Zed.” Someone else says. “Welcome, Harry. Grab a drink if you’d like. I’m Niall, the host.” A blond boy says. He’s leaning against the wall, a red cup between his fingers as well.

“Good to meet you.” Harry says with a smile. Zayn leads him over to the bar and pours more coke into his rum, which he’s thankful for, and pours himself a near full glass of whiskey and adds just a little juice to it.

The two of them migrate over to the couches and the conversation flows easily.

“So what d’ya do, Harry?” The same red-headed girl from before asks.

“Oh, nothing right now.” He lies easily. “I’m just travelling around a bit.” This gets a smile out of several people and it seems they’ve accepted him into their little group. “How about you all, then?” Zayn laughs, and Harry looks over to him.

“Haz, they meant - They didn’t mean your job.” This cracks a few laughs out of a few others. Harry furrows his eyebrows in confusion, looking around to see if anyone else seemed to get this joke that he’s not understanding. “He’s a bit virgin to the party scene.” He says to everyone else. Then he leans in a little closer and whispers, “They meant drugs. But don’t do any of these peoples’ drugs. You’ll end up in the hospital within an hour.”

“Oh–“ His face flames. “I don’t – sorry.” He laughs at himself and gets a chorus of _it’s all right mate_ and _we’ve all been there._ He appreciates that no one teases him or gives him hell for his ignorance with the scene, but everything flows pretty seamlessly after that.

 

He’s only a little buzzed within the hour, but he asks Zayn if they can go dance, and Zayn happily obliges. He’s stopped paying attention to the casts of color, instead just moves along to the music, ignores the people staring at them, and lets Zayn take a bit of control over how he moves. He’s always loved dancing with someone – formal or not. The way the music just seems to take over and tell him ways to move that he never would have done without the guide of a fast beat. He gets a kind of high off it that he’s not sure he could describe to anyone except Zayn. With a single glance, though, he knows Zayn feels the same way.

They’ve always shared that feeling – since they were fourteen and Zayn took him on his first car ride without an escort and they danced with three other people from Zayn’s block. “Think it’s time for another drink for me.” Zayn says between songs, when the music is still growing in volume.

“Agreed,” He agrees easily. His previous doubts are entirely muted now; so, he’s having fun. He’s a lightweight with alcohol, but he trusts Zayn to portion out his alcohol with more coke and less rum. “Let’s go.” They head back upstairs and Niall is missing, but as soon as he walks through the doors, he hears a familiar voice.

“I’ll be dammed.” It’s the raspy voice from earlier – blue eyes. He has a slightly different tone to his voice this time, though, and his eyes immediately flick over to Zayn. They narrow just enough for Harry to realize that something’s off – but then he seems content again. It leaves the feeling that Harry is out of place, though. It makes him feel like Zayn wasn’t welcome to bring guests and he’s just the poor result of a broken rule.

“Louis, this is Harry.” Zayn says with a hesitant look and it almost makes Harry feel more uneasy. He’s out of place. The urge to run starts to build up in his nerve endings, but then Louis is grinning and he calms. It’s – weird. He’s never met someone who can make him feel so much with such subtle changes of his emotions – just a simple shift in Louis’ facial expression has completely changed his emotional state twice in the last minute. It’s nerve wracking.

But the way he holds a room so clearly just with his presence makes him feel safe. It’s strange to feel that way, but he can’t help it. Especially as Louis takes another step towards him and glances up his body once, then down. It feels grounding.

“We met earlier today, actually. He was having trouble at the charge station.” Harry feels a bit like a deer caught in headlights. He can tell Louis is commanding this room of people, demanding the attention of everyone around him, just by the way they’re all turned to face him. “Didn’t know you knew how to have fun, curly.”

“I, uh –“

“Louis, be nice.” Zayn scolds and it makes Louis laugh. The command clearly has no weight, not in the way that Zayn usually can tell anyone to do something and they just follow blindly. He has that way of convincing people to do what he wants.

“I am being nice, hm, curly?” He pats the spot beside him. “Let me get you a drink?” Harry nods kind of dumbly, unsure what else to say and sits where Louis had told him to sit.

“Rum and coke, please.”

“Polite.” Louis says and clicks his tongue. It makes his stomach to a flip. Zayn sits beside him and jabs an elbow into his side.

“All right?”

“Yeah, yeah, all good.” He says with a genuine smile. He is really interested by blue-eyes – Louis – and he wants to know more about him. He likes the way he behaves, for some reason, and he wants to know more.

“You’ll be good if I leave you up here, then? Think I’m gonna go ask a friend if she wants to dance.”

“Use protection!” He says maybe a little too loudly, a laugh in the words, and Zayn flicks him off. Someone else laughs, too, and he feels a little better.

“Shut it you knob.” Is the last thing Zayn says before he’s out the door of the room.

“Hi.” Louis says and sits beside him again, hands him his cup. He takes it with a smile and takes a drink.

He coughs and Louis laughs. It’s not a malice-filled laugh, though, so he just grins. “Sorry, the one Zayn made was…”

“More soda, less rum. Zayn’s always been more of a drink less, more often, type anyway.” Louis pauses, crosses his legs, and he really can see how he commands a room just with his body language. Just with the way that the others are sitting with their bodies subconsciously turned towards him, as if they’re ready to follow his beck and call. It’s just a little intimidating. “How’d you two meet, anyway?”

“Our mothers were very close when we were young. I used to follow him around, honestly. He’s a few years older than I am, but he always let me follow without complaining about it. We kind of just stayed attached, I suppose.” Louis nods like he agrees or understands, and Harry feels like that’s enough. Normally, he wouldn’t enjoy being dismissed like that, but it’s something about Louis that actually makes him not mind.

Louis turns towards the girl beside him and chats with her a bit, so Harry decides to talk with Niall some more. The blonde boy just feels infectious with his enthusiasm and happiness that has, throughout the night, felt like it’s managed to light up the entire room. Sometime during his chat, Louis’ hand winds up laying possessively over his thigh and Harry just tries not to focus on how nice a touch that could maybe be intimate feels.

 

He’s about half way through his glass when he’s feeling a bit more woozy – and certainly a lot more drunk. “All right?” Louis asks, quirked eyebrow and all.

“I’m a bit of a – a lightweight.” He says with a little laugh, a hiccup between his words. Louis just grins.

“Want me to take you home?” Harry shakes his head. He leans over and rests his head against Louis’ shoulder, still smiling. He smells nice. It’s not fair that pretty boys can smell nice _and_ look nice.

“Want-ta stay. Want-ta dance with you.” He says with a grin and Louis shakes his head. He feels like he’s floating, like his head is clouded and he can’t quite remember where he is. He feels good, though. Louis is funny and makes him happy.             

“I’m honestly quite sure if you stood up right now you’d fall over.” Harry pouts and – because he does enjoy being right – he stands. Louis, as it turns out, though, is right. He falls right over on his ass as soon as he takes a few steps forward and laughs at himself quietly. Louis’ laugh is light and airy, but then he picks him up and Harry feels – well he feels a bit more grounded. Being taller than most, he’s not used to getting lifted. Louis is smaller than him anyway, but there’s clear strength in his arms in the way that his muscles bulge just a bit with Harry’s weight. “Let’s find you a place to sleep.”

Louis carries him down the hall, to another room, and opens the door with a traditional key. Harry is too busy thinking about the last time he’d seen a traditional key to notice that Louis sets him down on a bed.

“Come find me when you wake up, Curly.” Harry just nods.

He’s asleep within a few minutes.

 

When he wakes, his mouth is dry and his head is throbbing. He hadn’t realized exactly how much he had had to drink until that moment – even though it hadn’t really felt like he’d had this much. The room is completely dark, but after a moment of feeling around he finds a lamp and switches it on, watching as the dim yellow of the old-fashioned light illuminates the walls around him. There’s a bottle of water on the side table along with two purple tablets, the only clue as to the fact that someone has acknowledged his hangover, but he lets them sit. He doesn’t trust the tablets, but he does drink the entire bottle of water in one go.

The door opens just a crack until the person on the other side realizes that he’s awake and comes in. The light sends another jolt of the stabbing pain through his skull, so he looks back over to the tablets sitting on the table and thinks about taking them again. He won’t – but the thought of not being in pain is just appealing.

It’s Nick who walks in, he thinks that’s his name anyway, but Zayn is in tow. Zayn has this look on his face that screams guilt, and Harry furrows his eyebrows. He’s only seen that look on Zayn’s face one other time, and it had been when he’d kissed Harry’s sister at a party and come crawling to him for forgiveness. The two of them had never done things on purpose to hurt one another – never done anything to make one another have a reason to feel guilty, so he doesn’t like seeing Zayn look like that. It doesn’t suit him well.

There’s a gun in Zayn’s hand, though, as Nick closes the door behind him and _that_ catches Harry’s attention. “It’s really sad, Harry. You were quite fun to hang around with.” Nick says with a click of his tongue. Harry fumbles out of the bed faster than he ever has in his entire life, scrambles to the other side of the room, but it does little more than make him feel more exposed. The pain in his head is pressed to the back of his mind as the anxiety pulses through his veins. He doesn’t want to think about why Nick is talking about him in past tense.

“I’m – I don’t know what’s going on. Did I do something?” Nick shakes his head and sighs softly, in the worst way that makes him feel _stupid_. He feels like he should know what he’s done but he really has no clue. He doesn’t think he’s broken anything and he doesn’t think he’d done anything wrong while he was sitting with Louis the entire night. No one here would have been able to recognize him anyway – just because his Father had made sure that a photograph of him had never been published with his title or status in the caption.

Zayn is staring at the ground and hasn’t even acknowledged Harry yet, but he has that same guilty look still written across his face, etched deep into his features and he thinks there might even be a trace of tears there. It’s abnormal for the two of them to not speak if within eyesight of each other, let alone be in the same room quietly. This entire situation is making him feel nauseous and ill and confused and unsure. He doesn’t have a clue why Nick wants to kill him or how he’s supposed to get out of this.

“Zayn, why don’t you explain to Harry why you’re going to have to kill him?” Harry’s eyes fill with tears as Zayn finally looks up. Zayn – Zayn wouldn’t. There’s no way he’d be able to! They’ve been best friends long enough that even just the thought of hurting Zayn would have left a nasty taste in his mouth – but even just a passing _thought_ of killing him doesn’t seem possible. He can’t imagine what’s going through Zayn’s head – but he doesn’t think that it could be agreement with Nick.

Until he speaks.

“I’m sorry, Haz. I didn’t – I honestly wasn’t thinking when I brought you here. I’m so, so sorry.” His eyes are filling with tears, too, and Harry can’t feel anything except the despair filling his gut. Zayn’s going to kill him.

“Oh don’t worry Zaynie, you’re next, so you won’t have to feel the guilt for too long.” Nick sing songs and it makes Harry’s heart jack-rabbit in his chest. He’s panicking – the reality that he’s about to die really settling in. He really doesn’t even know what he’s done or what the cause of this is, but his body is buzzing with adrenaline. With the need to flee.

“What’s happening?” Harry shouts, every nerve ending in his body alert. “What is this? All I did was go to a party!”

“You’re acting like I didn’t know who you were when I first saw you, you fucking _royal twerp.”_ Harry feels the breath leave his lungs. So, the people here _do_ know who he is. He supposes that this would be where he’d think and say that his Father had been right all along, that he should have just stayed home where there was no way that he could have strayed away from safety. Now that he’s actually about to die, he wants to say that he had been right, but he can’t. He doesn’t think his life should have been lived sitting in his room and strolling about the manor with no threat of anything even _fun_ coming to his life. But he wishes he would have let Louis take him home – or at least back to his hotel room -  last night. Maybe then he wouldn’t be here. “Now that you’ve seen all of this, you’re going to go squeal to your dad and let him know exactly where we are.” This is it, then.

“You’re the rebellion.” He says, suddenly feeling chilled to his bones, “You – Zayn you said this was a get together! Not the –“ His eyes are wide as he stares over at his once best friend – the man he’d thought he knew everything about his entire life. “You’re a part of the rebellion.” He whispers so quiet he isn’t sure Zayn hears him. It isn’t a question. Just by being here – just by knowing who these people are – would have made Zayn guilty by association. But Zayn’s short, simple nod, tells him more than he really needed – or wanted – to know.

His best friend goes against everything he’s learned and lived his entire life. His best friend wants his Father to die and the Following to fall. His best friend wants every piece of their world to dissolve beneath them and wants times to go back to the Old Times when nothing was good and everyone was out to get one another. He doesn’t understand it – he just – he doesn’t understand any of this.

“That’s enough. No need to do any yelling.” Nick runs a gloved hand through his hair. “You two are going to go and stand against that wall there,” He points to a far wall, across the room. Harry doesn’t move, though. He refuses to follow orders until his death. Nick sighs, rolls his eyes, and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Listen, you really don’t –“ The door opens and Nick startles. Harry looks over and sees Louis standing there, an angry expression on his face and arms crossed over his chest.

“Nick.” He says, voice so low it sends a shiver up Harry’s spine. “Get the fuck over here. Zayn, put the gun down.” Zayn drops the gun faster than he’s ever seen his friend do anything, and scurries back over to Louis’ side. Louis picks it up and shoves it into the back of his trousers with practiced ease. “You’re going to go sit in my room and wait for me. Zayn. Go get some sleep.”  The two of them are out of the room faster than Harry can really think straight, and he hears Louis sigh. “I’m really sorry about that. Are you all right?”

“Uh –“ His voice is shaking a bit. “No. I don’t – what just happened?” Louis shakes his head and sighs. Harry’s hands are still shaking with the anxiety that had been coursing through him, with the adrenaline that had come from the thought that he was about to die.

“Nick just – took things into his own hands which aren’t meant to be dealt with by him.” He says it as if that alone is going to make Harry understand, but he gives a sympathetic enough smile that Harry doesn’t know what else to say.

“So, you all know who I am then.”

“Well, yes.” Louis weighs. He doesn’t sound put off by it, though, and that only manages to confuse Harry more. He’s never once heard of a follower of his Father respecting a rebel, let alone a rebel respecting a follower. He doesn’t – maybe Louis isn’t a part of the revolution, then? That’s really the only thought that he can muster up because there would be no other reason for him to be alive right now, let alone alive and not being held hostage.

“Would it not be fair for me to know who you are, then? And why you could tell a man waving a gun what to do without so much as raising your voice?” Harry forces himself to garner the courage to ask. He needs to know exactly who Louis is and even more what it is he’s planning on doing with the information of who he is. Louis smiles again.

“Come find me later if you still think that question is something you want to ask.” He says with a polite nod and Harry watches as he pulls the leather material of his gloves tighter on his fingers before walking out of the door. Before he closes it all the way, he pauses, the black of the material contrasting deeply against the white of the door as he glances back inside of the room. “The tablets really are just pain relievers. If you still have the hang over after all that, you have my word that they’re safe to take.”

 

It was likely the adrenaline crash that allowed him to fall asleep so quickly after Louis left, but when he wakes, it’s to the feeling of fingers carding through his hair. He wakes with a startled gasp, eyes opening as he jerks forward when he sees Zayn. Zayn has the tell-tale sign of crying beneath his eyes with the dark, red rims and bloodshot veins in his eyes. He still looks like he’s feeling guilty and it makes Harry want to forgive him.

“I’m so –“ Zayn starts and takes a deep breath. Another tear falls down his face. “I’m so sorry for earlier. I understand entirely if you chose to never speak to me again.” He sniffles. “He didn’t tell me that I was going to be told to – to hurt you. I was told we were just coming to check on you, see if you were okay. I didn’t – I didn’t know until we were right outside of your room.” Zayn rubs at his eyes and the clothe of his gloves catches the wetness there and rids of it.

“Can you just explain to me what’s going on? You’re – you’re a part of the rebellion?”

“Yes.” Zayn says softly. “Not everyone that was here last night is. Most of them are just neutrals, you know? Like, they don’t fall to either side so they just do whatever. I honestly didn’t expect as many of us to show up that did, so when I said I would take you here, I swear it wasn’t with the idea of you getting hurt in mind.” He sighs softly and bites at his lip. “I know we probably can’t talk anymore anyway, now that you know I’m a part of the rebellion. But if that’s what you think is best, I’ll let you go.” Harry blinks a few times and lets himself take in everything that Zayn just said. He isn’t sure how he feels and he had no clue how he’s supposed to feel.

“I honestly don’t know what to say, Zayn. I’m confused and hurt and what happened was so terrifying that I’m not sure I’ve entirely processed it yet. But I forgive you. I’ll always forgive you, no matter what. You’re still my best friend.” He chews the inside of his cheek for a moment. “You’ve always been like a brother to me, rebel or not. I don’t think our relationship will have to change until… until I take power. Which then I supposed you will be against me. But, um, that aside, I still care for you.” Zayn doesn’t say anything, just places his hand over the top of Harry’s and smiles softly. Just the slightest upturn of the corners of his lips but it makes him realize that everything is fine. Everything is fine and everything will continue to be fine, no matter what. “Can you just – can you take me back to my hotel now? I’m going to go see Liam this weekend.” Zayn bites his lip.

“Not yet. Why don’t we go get something to eat first and we’ll figure all of this out later, okay?”

“Alright, I suppose.” Harry says, suddenly feeling much more hesitant than before. Zayn leads him out of the room and he’s immediately floored when he realizes that he’s not in the same building he was in when he was awake the night before. The hallways are bigger and they all have an off white paint color to them, but there are windows streaming in light that makes it feel bigger than it is.

“I’m sorry that we had to move you while you were sleeping last night. Niall is open to a lot of things, but he likes it when people leave his house after his parties. This is Louis’ house.” Harry blinks a few times.

“Why am I here? Who exactly _is_ Louis?” Zayn turns a corner and walks into what appears to be a sitting room, where Louis is sitting with his tablet in his hand, typing something up and a pair of glasses perched on his nose. He recognizes a few familiar faces from the night before, all of them typing at various forms of technology, too. When Louis looks up, he smiles.

“Good morning Harry. Sorry about the change of scenery. Come sit if you’d like, I have a kettle on now.” He motions to the spot open beside him as he tucks his tablet away.

“Um, I actually just would like to go home. So… I guess I stepped in to say goodbye.” Louis’ eyes turn a shade of darker blue when he says that, and his eyebrows furrow.

“Lets go for a walk.” He stands. “Zayn, stay here.” Harry’s heart skips a beat inside of his chest at that instruction, simply with the dread that he is in an unfamiliar place with an almost-complete-stranger. An almost-complete-stranger that has a gun, what the Following considers the most treasonous possession. But he still follows him, just because he isn’t sure what else to do.

Their walk, it turns out, is to the roof of the building. Louis’ attic opens to the roof and he leads Harry out with a hand to help him climb up. They sit with their backs against the chimney and the silence floats between the two of them for much too long. “I still want to know who you are, if you are planning on keeping me here like this.” Louis smiles again.

“Okay. I’ll tell you if you answer me one question first.” He furrows his eyebrows, but something tells him that if he doesn’t answer Louis’ question, he’ll never get the answer to his, so he just nods. “Are you a follower of your Father, Harry?” He swallows hard and stares at his hands. They’ve still got a pair of gloves pulled tightly over them. He keeps them just because it would be a tragedy if there was any evidence of his presence here.

“I don’t know how to answer that. Are you going to kill me if I say yes and say I should join the rebellion if I say no? What are the consequences of my answer?”

“None at all. Your opinion is your opinion. You’re entitled to it. I just want to know.”

“I am a follower of my Father, yes. I believe that the Following is what keeps us safe and prevents the same disasters that were present in the Old World from happening here, to us.” Louis nods like he appreciates everything that Harry is saying and it feels nice.

“Do you remember when you were younger and you were sitting on your staircase when your dad had someone dragged through your house by your guards?” Harry furrows his eyebrows, thinks back to that exact time and realizes that, yes, he does. So he nods. “Well, that was me. I’m Louis Tomlinson.” Harry sputters out a cough, unsure why he didn’t make that connection before. He stares wide eyed at Louis for a long moment and wonders why he hasn’t been killed yet.

Why the leader of the rebellion wants to be kind to him, he doesn’t understand. Why the leader of the Rebellion didn’t shoot him the moment he said he was a supporter of the Following, he doesn’t understand either. But he isn’t entirely sure that he wants to, either. Louis is still looking at him with a gentle smile though, so the fear goes away.

“Tell me, would you give me a chance to convince you to come with me? To stay here?” Louis quirks an eyebrow, and there’s a grin on his face. Harry is at a loss for words for the first time in his life – he’s completely unsure how to articulate his answer.

“No.” He says instead of a proper response. It’s improper and impolite to not give a reason, but he doesn’t know what else to say. “No, I would prefer you didn’t. I am a supporter of the Following.”

“I said no strings attached with your decision, Harry, and that is still completely on the table. You don’t have to do anything other than promise to keep quiet about everything that happened here and we’ll let you go. But if you do decide to join us, I could make it very good for you.” He whispers the last sentence in his ear, just close enough to send a shiver down Harry’s spine.

“What do you mean make it good for me?” He asks, voice small and unsure. Louis’ gaze meets his own and holds it, their gazes locked as a small smirk tugs across his lips. “Wait – I said don’t try to convince me.” He quickly covers, his face feeling warm again. Louis makes his head spin.

“Well, Harry, the best thing about not having any rules to follow except my own is that I have no reason to deny myself the things I enjoy. I am very much attracted to you, and if you say yes, you could have a much better life than with him. That’s the last thing I’ll tell you about this, unless you would like to hear more.” His voice is still just barely a whisper, and his hand sits close enough to Harry’s thigh that he knows it’s there even though he’s not touching him. Of course he’s not naïve enough to know that Louis means he’d be here for him to have sex with – but he really – would that really be so bad? Would it really be so bad if he could escape from the confines of his boring life and just be able to let loose, to do what he wanted all the time?

All of the responsibility he’s been forced to take would have to fall back on Gemma, though, and he doesn’t think that would be good for either of them. She’s known since they were barely old enough to understand that she didn’t want to rule, so when that was decided, Harry’s decision no longer mattered. He was just who the responsibility fell to. As nice as it would be to stay with Louis –  to stay with the overwhelming sense of freedom - there are some things he knows he just can’t do. He knows the rebels hurt people, anyway. That’s just something Harry could never allow himself to do. He could never hurt people, never do anything that he’s been told that the people of the rebellion do.

He immediately pushes those thoughts away. It could be considered treason just for sitting here with Louis, let alone sitting here with Louis and allowing himself to have thoughts about the Rebellion. He will never speak a word of this to anyone, he knows that. But from what he’s seen – other than the way Nick went a bit absurd – he’s not sure how these are the same people who blew up the apartment complex in Surrey District last month. He’s not sure how these people, who seemed so kind and gentle last night, could be the same people who have done countless terrorism missions with the only goal in mind to take down his Father.

Looking at Louis, he can’t really imagine that he’s done any of the horrible things he’s heard, but then again, he has to be the man his Father hates the most for a reason, right?

“I think you should really just take me back to my hotel, Louis. I’m sorry.” He pretends not to notice the saddened look on Louis’ face and just turns away. The sun is slowly lowering in the sky and it’s probably just past about three, but Harry doesn’t think he would mind sitting here with Louis a while longer, just living the illusion of not being _Harry Styles_ a while longer. But Louis doesn’t play along. He stands almost immediately, then walks towards the door with only a small motion for Harry to follow.

He assumes he’s overstayed his welcome, now.

 

 

 

 

**  
**

**PART TWO: The Decision**

Harry sits in the passenger side of the car as Louis drives. He drives with this concentrated look on his face, eyes just ever-so-slightly narrowed as he stares off into the road and focuses on the cars around him. It’s clear that he hasn’t used any kind of automatic driving assistance in a long while, just in the way his body is poised with that defensive posture, ready to move away if anyone else does something unexpected.

The sunlight shines off of the blues in his eyes and makes them so much brighter, reveals the darker flakes of blues and the light hues of green that he thinks are probably only the most visible in the brightness of the sunlight. There are soft pink tones on his cheeks and his bone structure is sharp and beautiful – all of him is beautiful, really. He almost wants to say sorry – that he changes his mind – that he wants to go back and never have said no in the first place. But he can’t. He knows what his life is obligated to end up being, and it’s everything that goes against what Louis is.

“You’re staring at me.” Louis says with a slight smirk curving the corners of his lips upwards. He hasn’t even so much as glanced in Harry’s direction – but he assumes that one of Louis’ strengths is knowing what is in his surroundings. He would have to in order to be successful in what he does. Well, at least Harry thinks. He really doesn’t have a clue about anything that he’s almost just gotten himself into.

“Just because I said no to staying with you does not mean that I don’t find you attractive.” Louis quirks an eyebrow, but still doesn’t turn to look at Harry. He knows, logically, that it’s because he’s still focusing on the road and making sure he doesn’t kill the two of them, but he wishes he could look at Louis, see the emotions on his face and the reactions there, too. He loves reading people, especially the ones that interest him, and Louis definitely holds his interest.

“Oh, really?” He asks, voice light but not judgmental. “Then why’d you say no, curly?” The playful nickname comes back and it actually makes Harry smile. He’s not sure why – maybe he thought that he had made Louis angry or upset or something in that realm, but with just that simple use of the nickname, he doesn’t feel as awful about saying no anymore. But his face burns with the thought of the question. He doesn’t want to explain to Louis that he had to say no because his Father is actually ill and the people who think that he’ll be in rule at least another decade are wrong.

He doesn’t want to explain that his sister walked away from the responsibilities that were meant to be hers and left them on his shoulders. He doesn’t want to admit that he’s afraid that he could really fall in love with the risk and the lawlessness of Louis’ life and he certainly doesn’t want to admit that he will miss it when he goes home. None of these things are things that Louis, or anyone else, can ever know.

“I’m an heir, Louis. I can’t run away from that. The Following is the only way the world can hold it’s peace.” Is all he stays with, and Louis just hums. It isn’t until he turns his blinker on and pulls to the side of the road, drives about a kilometer into the grass and turns it off that his heart skips another beat.

“Get out for a second.” He says, leaving Harry more confused than not. He worries that Louis is going to abandon him there – no phone, no tablet, no way to get home. But when he climbs on to the trunk of the car and just sits down, he thinks that maybe this is harmless. “What have you been told that the rebellion stands for? What have you learned that we do?”

“Well, um.” Harry runs a hand through his hair. It feels weird to have to say all of this to the leader of what he’s meant to be fundamentally against.

“I’m quite sure I’ve heard it all, so don’t feel ashamed to tell me what you’ve been told.”

“Well, they always started with the horror stories of the before world. You know, the one where there was wars and overpopulation and the planet was literally dying beneath their feet, but human greed didn’t allow anyone to change anything that was going to kill them eventually. Then the war was, of course, caused by the Followers, those who wanted to have a world united, not divided by nations or skin color or nationality. So my great, great, great, whatever, grandfather created the revolution after the war started.” He feels like he’s telling a story they’ve all heard a dozen times, but it still never fails to leave a haunting feeling in his chest. He’s terrified of the world going back to those times, to the times when there wasn’t just peace. “So the people came together and promised they wouldn’t fall into the same traps that they’d been in before, that they’d create a better world for all of us. Then the revolution came and started protesting the system, refusing their assigned jobs, creating unnecessary havoc that was slowly bringing the world back to the old times. Um, hurting people who wouldn’t conform. Killing groups of people just to send a message. Bombing entire buildings full of civilians. Destroying jobs that were put in place for others and bringing down the system.” Louis is quiet for a while after that as he stares off into the sea of grass in front of them. It’s genetically modified grass, created for the aesthetic of having the rolling hills. He remembers watching one of his Father’s workers create the plan for it.

“While some of those things are true, I can promise you we’ve never killed a civilian.” Louis says with this look on his face that Harry isn’t sure he could have faked. But – the articles don’t lie. He’s almost entirely certain Louis must be the one telling the lie, because his Father would have no reason to tell him lies of the Rebellion. Whatever he’s been told would have been true. It just wouldn’t make sense for him to lie to Harry about these things when he’ll be inheriting the problem soon. “Would it be all right if I told you my outlook on the Following? Since I understand your outlook on me?”

“I suppose.” Harry says with a curt nod.

“When I was nine years old, three soldiers of the following came into my house and shot my mum and dad right in front of me and my sisters.” Louis says softly, folds his hands together and sets them in his lap. “My mum, allegedly, had been in cohorts with an older man named Simon. He’s dead now, so I doubt you’ve heard of him, but he was the previous leader of the rebellion. Until about ten years ago when I took over. A fifteen year old kid unsure of anything other than the fact that I wanted your old man to pay for killing the two people who mattered the very most to me.” Harry’s eyes widen, never having heard that story before. “I found out two years after their death that my mum wasn’t even associated with Simon. She’d been seen speaking with him one time while they were both standing in line at a coffee stand. Just a coincidental conversation with a stranger and it made her lose her life and they assumed that her involvement meant my Father’s involvement, too. Had I been much older, they would have killed me, too.”

“Louis that’s –“

“Two years later, my siblings and I were sent off to live with my mother’s brother, when my sister started having horrible dreams in the night times. She would wake up screaming and crying, and then in the day time she started having these fits where she would shake and be unable to breathe.” A pause. “We called a doctor in. They took my sister away from us and told us it was a terminal illness. Incurable. That she died in their care. I later found out that what she had, in the old times, was called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Do you know why there’s no such thing as mental illness, Harry? Because the Following kills anyone with symptoms of it. Because they’re a burden on society.”

“They would have never – “

“Don’t say it’s not true. Do you want to know what my job assignment was going to be, Harry? What my entire family’s job assignment was going to be? We were all going to be forced to live in the cubes. I’m sure you know better than anyone that they only put the worst of the society in the cubes, despite the myth that our jobs are chosen by how _we_ behave as children in society, no?”

“Jobs are chosen that way. I’ve sat in on council meetings –“

“Yeah? Then why wasn’t I to be assigned an engineering job? Why wasn’t my sister going to be assigned to textiles? My other sister to be a teacher? These were all the things that we should have been assigned to, by all accounts, but because they assumed we had some kind of rebellious blood in us were all going to be expected to go to the cubes and die by thirty.” Harry bites his lip, completely unsure of what he’s meant to say. He had never known that the elders were even able to manipulate the system. He’d never known that it was possible that someone wasn’t just assigned to the job that would best suit their happiness.

“I am so sorry that happened to you, Louis.” He says with a soft sigh.

“I’m not. There are some things that are meant to happen and this is what I’m trying to do. I’ve never told my people to kill someone innocent and I’ve certainly never caused mayhem inside of the general public. We tell people the truth of the system and we shed light on the corruption of the Following. Of course a few people have died in the process, but those were all Peace Control. That’s what war does. I’m not saying I don’t have a drop of blood on my hands, but what I’m saying is that your father and society as a whole has painted me out to be this murderous figure to be terrified of, but I just don’t think like the Following, and for that, I’m punished.”

“Why hasn’t he killed you?”

“Because we have a deal.” Louis says with a little grin, despite the wetness in his eyes from talking about his family.. “I was to stay away from you, since Gemma is already on my side, and in return, he would stay out of my business. Plus other things, but I’m not worried.”

“Wait – what do you mean about Gemma? And what _other things_?” Louis entirely ignores the part about Gemma when he speaks again.

“Well, the next person your father believes is in line to take over is much more trigger savvy than I am. He thinks the way to win is to take as many lives as he can. He doesn’t want that.” Harry nods, understanding. “But tell me, Harry, have you enjoyed having freedom?”

“Of course I have. I’ve never had it, but I have obligations.”

“Has your father not told you that in the law codes, you are not entitled to take the leadership should you chose not to? In the situation of the loss of an heir, the public would hold a general election after your father’s death.” Harry’s eyes widen again. Louis smile twitches up slightly at the corners.

He jumps down from the car after that and gets into the passenger’s side once again. He doesn’t want to talk about this anymore.

 

The rest of the ride is silent. It’s quiet in the car other than the soft hum of the tires speeding against the pavement and the gentle whooshing noise whenever Louis speeds past a car that’s going the proper speed that the road has set. Louis is an excellent driver is the main thing he’s learned from this entire experience, and he surprisingly trusts him while he’s going this fast.

When they pull into the parking lot of Harry’s hotel, he can really only feel distressed. He isn’t sure why he suddenly is sad about the thought of not being with Louis – but even just the thought alone makes his palms feel sweaty. “Do you… would you like to come upstairs for a bit?” He asks, the first question that’s been asked between the two of them since they got back into the car at the field.

 “Do you have something in mind that we’ll be doing?” Harry flushes, suddenly almost regretting saying anything. He’s always been somewhat of a shy person, always had too much of a filter to really be able to say the things that are really on his mind. He’s passive because he’s easily embarrassed and it’s not – it’s not _fair_ that Louis can just say things and make Harry squirm. “Because I don’t quite like having my time wasted, Curly.” The tone in his voice isn’t scornful, but it sounds more… suggestive. His cheeks feel hot still and when he turns to face Louis, there’s another grin on his face.

“Um,” Harry says, voice quiet. “Maybe just a cup of tea?” Louis shrugs and pulls into a parking spot, which Harry takes as enough of a yes.

When the two of them make it up to the hotel room, Harry scans his finger and gets enough hot water dispensed for really only one cup, but since he knows Louis can’t scan his finger, he pours it into two after the tea is made.

He gives one to Louis who smiles in thanks, sitting on the couch of the room. He isn’t sure, exactly, how he’s meant to ask Louis for sex. Of course he’d offered it already, but Louis seems to just have that quality of being able to say whatever he wants to say whenever he feels the need to say it. It’s the one thing that Harry has always lacked that he fears will harm him later in his life.

“You invited me up here because you wanted to have sex, yes?” Harry nearly chokes on his tea, face burning with embarrassment, but he nods. It’s humiliating how Louis always seems to know what he wants before he even has to voice it – something that no one in Harry’s life has ever done. He’s always had to watch the way he speaks, watch the way he acts and make sure that everything is perfectly choreographed to make the lives of those around him easy.

Louis breaks all of that down with a kind of ease that Harry isn’t sure he could get used to any time soon. Louis is just sitting there, legs crossed and tea in his hand as he looks at Harry a moment, a critical look in his eyes. He flushes again, just stands there dumb under his gaze and tries not to embarrass himself further.

Louis sets the cup down and motions over to the bed, so Harry sets his own down as well and follows Louis, unsure of what else it would mean by him doing that. It’s barely a moment, though, before Louis closes the space between them, then runs a hand down Harry’s cheek.

Louis kisses him, hard and wet and _dirty_ in the kind of way Harry probably should have expected from him. It’s rough and perfect in the exact way Harry has always craved – the exact way he’s always wanted every time he’s gotten himself off.

Louis starts with his trousers – undoes the button slowly before motioning for Harry to take them the rest of the way off.

He’s fully undressed before Louis even has his shirt off, and all it does is leave him feeling exposed. “You’re still dressed.” He says with a pout, which makes Louis laugh but, seemingly, pity him enough to take his own shirt off, then his own trousers.

Louis lightly pushes him back against the bed, then straddles his hips, circles his own in a circle with just enough friction to make Harry harden beneath him. He’s completely hard as soon as Louis starts kissing him again, the same dirtyrough way he had been doing before and it makes his head spin.

 “There’s something you should know Harry, before I touch you.” His eyebrows furrow, but he nods. He already feels sweaty, stomach tight with arousal. Louis clambers off of him and walks over to the window, making Harry furrow his eyebrows and sit up, just resting on the backs of his forearms. He’s confused, unsure of what to do now.

“What?”

“I’m not going to fuck you unless you agree to be mine.” He has to blink a few times – recenter his mind from something other than how turned on he _already_ is – and think about how Louis just said he’s not. _What?_ “Hey, don’t look so down.” He says, scratching his nails just ever so slightly into Harry’s thigh – just enough to make him twitch. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to get you off.”

“I don’t – what are you on about?” He asks, more confused than before. Louis is standing nearest the window, his pants the last article of clothing he has on. He’s clearly half hard, but not paying any attention to it. Something about the ruffle of his hair and the easy way he holds all of Harry’s attention makes him want to cling to every word.

He comes closer when Harry asks his question, comes to the edge of the bed and runs a hand through Harry’s curls. “I don’t fuck boys who won’t let me dominate them. And I won’t dominate anyone who won’t agree to be mine.” Another shiver runs up Harry’s spine. He meets Louis’ gaze and lets himself see the truth within it. “What do you want, Harry?”

“Just –“ His cheeks still feel hot. “I don’t – I don’t know.”

“Are you shy?”

“ _Louis_ would you just – stop making me all – embarrassed!” Louis takes a stray strand of hair from Harry’s face and tucks it behind his ear.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No.” He says, biting his lip between his teeth.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Harry nods. “Words, love. You’re going to have to tell me.”

“I’m – yes. Yes, Louis, I want you to touch me.” He hadn’t realized exactly how hard he was, how much it was starting to ache until Louis’ hand squeezes at his length and a short groan comes from his mouth.

“Has anyone ever touched you before, Harry?” Louis asks, keeping eye contact as he moves to grab Harry’s dick from his boxers and wraps a hand around it, just holding it, not moving. It makes his breathe catch in his throat, but he bites his lip as he looks back to Louis.

“Yes.” He says softly, unsure why he feels the need to lie. Maybe it’s just intimidating – the way Louis seems to just drip the kind of confidence Harry wants more than anything else. Louis hums quietly, moves his thumb to circle the head of his cock, just enough to make him gasp. He doesn’t say anything else, but instead he leans down with one movement and takes the head into his mouth, swirls his tongue about and brings his other hand to hold Harry’s hips down. His breath catches again and he wants nothing more than to touch Louis – to reach out and run his fingers through his hair or to hold his hand – but all he can think to do is grasp at the bedsheets. It’s not enough – but it grounds him.

It isn’t until Louis takes more of his length in his mouth that Harry slings his own arm over his face as he whines high in his throat. As soon as he does, though, Louis’ touch is gone and he’s left panting, whining at the loss of the touch.

“Don’t cover your eyes.” His voice is firm when he speaks, so Harry takes his arm away and is met with a smile on Louis’ face. “Stay still, yeah?” Harry has to blink a few times and catch Louis’ gaze before he nods.

Louis grabs Harry’s calf and presses it up, moves both of his legs until his feet are flat on the bed and his legs are spread wide open. He flushes again, suddenly feeling exposed, but Louis is looking at him like he’s the most beautiful person he's ever seen.

Louis begins to languidly stroke the underside of Harry's cock, mesmerized at how hard Harry already is. He keeps his gaze on his cock and says, "Harry, love, you're already so hard for me and we haven't even started yet." Louis says as he flicks his gaze onto Harry's eyes. "You sure you've been touched like this before?" There’s a teasing lilt to his tone that makes Harry’s face feel warm again – something about the critical way he’s looking over him makes the arousal coil tighter in his belly.

Harry's panting and almost wants to cry at how much of a tease Louis is being by only giving gentle touches, fleeting amounts of skin contact against his own. It’s not _enough._ He licks his lips and is about to answer Louis, come up with some kind of sassy response, but then he feels a pair of wet lips placing opened mouth kisses on his rim.

Harry's breath hitches and he arches his back at the feeling, a high whine coming from the back of his throat. _Toomuchtoomuchnotenougnotenough_ is all he can think. “Lou – Lou.” He whines, the nickname coming from nowhere through harsh pants.

Louis pulls back, pupils dilated, however, an ambivalent expression on his face remains. "Harry, rule number one: don't answer me unless I have given permission to do so.” He clicks his tongue and Harry’s mouth feels dry. Louis had said he wouldn’t fuck him unless he came with him – so maybe he shouldn’t have assumed that meant he wouldn’t fall into his dominant role – but it makes him squirm. “Rule number two: stay. still." Louis emphasizes his last couple of words by pushing Harry's hips down forcefully. "Do you understand?” Harry's eyes are blown wide and his cheeks are beet red - he's never been so turned on – just Louis’ tone of voice is enough to make him feel on the edge of coming. "You may speak." Louis adds, almost like an afterthought.

"Yes, I understand." Harry responds, nodding obediently. He’s not sure why it feels so easy to fall into this kind of submissive role, but everything feels easy with Louis.

"Very well, then." Louis holds Harry's thighs tightly, reminding Harry of what's about to happen. He drags his nails lightly down his milky thighs, the slightly-painful sensation mixing so perfectly with the arousal that it makes another whine keen from Harry’s throat. Louis ducks his head and kitten licks at Harry's entrance, making his leg twitch but Louis’ command to keep still makes him keep it pulled up, close to his chest. He’s panting with each movement of Harry’s tongue, his fingers gripping the material of the bedsheets below him as stars dance in front of his eyes.

Louis slides his tongue into Harry and slowly pushes in and out, in and out. That’s when Harry completely loses it – shamelessly moans beneath the older man and twitches with each thrust, forcing himself to keep still. He’s about to come – the heat tight in his stomach as his cock twitches. Harry bites his lips in agony and whines high in his throat. "Such a fucking tease." Harry whispers under his breath. It’s almost like Louis _knows –_ like he has to keep being the worst kind of tease because he chooses that moment to pull away.

"God you taste so good, baby." Louis says as he pulls a bit further away and takes a breath. His lips are swollen red, just slightly different from their natural shade. Harry’s cock twitches again. "Can't get enough of you." Louis grips Harry's bent thighs and pulls him even closer to his face, making Harry gasp with the strength Louis has, just being able to manhandle him like that. Harry covers his face with his hands, breathing deeply, trying to will himself to not come just yet.

He then remembers that Louis wants to see his face so he bites his bottom lip and takes his hands away from his face, gripping the sheets once again instead. Louis licks up Harry's perineum, licking the vein on underside of his cock and going down on Harry's cock, deepthroating him and making Harry groan. Louis moans around his cock as if it's the best thing he's ever tasted, his tongue swirling about and his cheeks hollowed. The vibrations nearly made Harry come, “Lou,” He whines again, but Louis doesn’t pretend to not have heard that one. He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the bed, panting.

"Baby, look at me." Harry opens his eyes and sees a gorgeous Louis between his legs. His hair looks just eversoslightly disheveled, just enough to prove a little bit of what they’ve been doing. He isn’t sure exactly when Louis got his pants off, but his cock stands flush against his stomach, and Harry licks his lips again. "Open your mouth." Harry does as he’s told, not questioning him anymore. Something about the older man is just so easy to follow – so easy to trust and not doubt.

Louis sticks two of his fingers inside of Harry's mouth and Harry closes around him, letting his eyes fall shut as he lets himself enjoy the sensation of having something in his mouth. When Harry sucks and licks around Louis' fingers,  he feels the bed shuffle just slightly and a little moan escapes from Louis’ lips. When he opens his eyes, Louis has one hand wrapped around the thick girth of his own cock, stroking himself slowly as he stares at him.

Harry shifts his eyes to Louis' so that they're both staring at each other intensely.

"You're so good with your tongue, must've had lots of practice. You practice with your tongue on all the boys?" Harry feels his face heat up all over again – Louis always seems to know exactly what to say to make him feel just on that perfect edge of humiliated.

He firmly grips Harry's cock and slides his throat down. Louis takes his other hand and wets Harry's rim, pushing in one digit, making Harry moan louder. It’s been too long since he’s fingered himself – but the way Louis had opened him up with his tongue makes the slide easy. His breaths come out in short pants as he feels his cock twitch in Louis’ mouth. Louis chooses that moment to grip the bottom of his cock, wraps two fingers around it tightly and squeezes, completely stopping Harry from coming.

Harry throws his head back and chokes on a sob when he pushes another finger inside of him at the same time, his head spinning with the arousal. "Hey, eyes on me and only me." Harry complies, watching as Louis licks the slit of his cock, tasting his precome and moaning. “You’re not going to come yet, but soon, love. I promise.” _Love._ Harry keens under the nickname.

Louis doesn’t put his mouth back on Harry’s cock, but he presses a third finger inside of him all at once, then curves his fingers at a perfect angle, hitting his prostate dead on and making Harry shout. He keeps his fingers there, circling the sensitive bundle of nerves inside of him while his other hand is still wrapped around the base of his cock, keeping him from coming. Low "uh uh uh"s are all that can be heard from Harry as his body trembles just slightly.

"Please." Harry whispers. "Please fuck me. I need it, need you." Louis looks up at Harry; his eyes fucked out, hair disheveled and lips bitten raw. Louis maintains his calm facade, and asks Harry firmly once more.

"You can come now.” Is what Louis gives in response, taking his hand away from his cock and pressing one last hard stroke against his prostate before Harry is coming thick ropes against his stomach, some even landing up on his chin. He feels sated, falls back against the bed with his limbs feeling light and weightless.

He hears a few of Louis’ moans, then feels a bit more wetness on his stomach to see that Louis came on him. He’s not really sure where the urge came from, or why he does it, but he swipes his finger through the little puddle of Louis’ come on his stomach and sucks it off of his finger.

Louis’ smile makes him feel like he’s on top of the world.

When he gets up, Harry watches him go off to the bathroom and listens as the water turns on and then off again. When he comes out, he has a cloth in his hand and sits on the bed right beside Harry.

“So you were really serious when you said you wouldn’t fuck me unless I came with you?”

“Completely.” Louis says, rubbing the wet cloth over Harry’s stomach.

“Why, though?” Louis’ eyes flick back over to Harry’s, holding his gaze for just a moment before he sighs.

“To be completely honest, I get quite attached very quickly with the people I fuck, mostly because the sexual lifestyle I life is so intimate and requires so much trust. I kind of – I really shouldn’t have done what I did today, because I could see that you were about to go under. I’m really sorry for that. But unless I know that I can have you with me for the long run, I wouldn’t want to … go into such an intimate relationship when you could just leave whenever you wanted to.” Harry has to just – take all of that in for a moment. He’d never envisioned Louis to be the type to show any kind of vulnerability – let alone outright voice it.

“I’m sorry I can’t give that to you.” He says, even though every part of him is screaming to go with Louis, to follow him and let everything be better. He can imagine how much more liberated be would feel if he could be free all the time.

“It’s all right, Harry. I’m not asking you to. It’s your decision.” Louis runs his fingers through Harry’s hair a while longer after he’s been wiped down, and that’s all it takes before he’s drifting off into a nap.

When he wakes, Louis is sitting up against the headboard, typing away at his phone. Harry blinks away the sleep in his eyes and realizes that some time while he’d been sleeping, Louis had covered him with a blanket. His heart almost feels like it beats a bit harder with fondness for the older boy. It’s overwhelming as he looks up at Louis, watches as he moves his fingers against the screen of his phone.

“Good morning.” Louis says without so much as looking over at him.

“Morning. How long was I asleep?”

“Two and a half hours. I figured it would be a bit rude to leave you to wake up alone.” Louis says with a small smile, setting his phone down on the side table. Harry sits up, stretches his back and arms and listens as they all crack with the movement.

“Can I ask you something, Lou?”

“Sure.”

“What did you mean when you said Gemma is on your side?” He asks, scratching mindlessly at his thigh. He feels clean still, all of the come and sweat wiped away from his body, and he feels content with Louis laying beside him. He thinks the nap might have been what made him feel more refreshed, but he can still feel all of what he’d been feeling right before he went to sleep. His head is still somewhat foggy – a little detached from whatever it was that Louis did to him – but he still wants to know about his sister.

She’s always been something of an anomaly to him – a ghost that came in and out of his frame of existence just whenever she pleased. She’d show up in his bedroom during the night and sleep with him and make him promise to never speak a word of her arrival to their parents, then be gone by the time he woke. Then there were the times she would arrive home, Liam close at her side with the both of them dressed to the nines and flaunting their _relationship_ about. Harry, of course, always knew that they were both gay and only really kept the looks up for their parents; but, with Gemma’s name on Louis’ lips, it only left him with more confusion. What did Gemma have to do with the rebellion?

“Remember before, when I said you should really think about whether or not you want to know the answer to a question before you ask it?”

“For someone who’s trying to get me to come with him, you’re not doing a great job. I asked the question, I want to know the answer. She’s my sister. I have the right to know if she’s involved with you.” He says, his voice firm around Louis for the first time since they met. Louis quirks one eyebrow and nods like he understands.

“She runs the outpost of the rebellion in the New Castle District.” Harry feels a bit dizzy all of a sudden, his mouth dry.

“Do my parents know?”

“Well, your father does. It’s why he let her run off instead of take on the throne. From what I’ve heard from her, your mother still thinks she’s off studying and working on her higher degrees for her newly assigned job.” He almost says he’ll join Louis. The words are on the tip of his tongue – just with the knowledge that his sister has been a part of this for so long. If she’s doing it – there has to be some kind of good in it if his sister is involved. It’s the only thing he can think of. 

“What about someone named Liam Payne?” He asks, the words heavy in his mouth.

“Now, I’m not going to just throw names out here, Harry. You asked about your sister, I can give you that. But until you decide to join me, that’s all I can or will give you.” Harry sighs, but he understands. He’s not sure why he thought it would be easy to get that kind of information out of Louis, but it was worth a shot. “I do need to go now, though, but you can call Zayn’s number if you ever want to talk.” It’s barely a few minutes after that before Louis is dressed and walking out of his room with just a wink as a goodbye. He needs to forget about Louis and just move on with his life. He has a responsibility – he can’t let the world fall back into the Old Times – not when that’s the exact responsibility he’s been entrusted with.

He decides he still wants to go see Liam.

Liam will show him to a good time, he figures, and hopefully a good time that isn’t _illegal._ He doesn’t need any more of that in his life and he refuses to come back to this place and fall back into that role.

It’s well past supper time and he realizes he hasn’t eaten anything yet for the day – so he calls room service and waits for the food box to ding inside of his room with his meal. He hopes that the system can tell that he skipped his pre-planned lunch meal and gives him just a bit more for the supper time meal, but he doubts it will.

When the ding comes, he finds out that he’s right. It’s just a small portion of chicken and rice with a cup of tea, but it’s enough. The portioning is there for a reason. Heart disease and death from a poor diet had once been an epidemic in the world – this is the only way to keep ahold of the population’s health. He knows that.

But it doesn’t feel quite as fair as it did before as he sits at the small desk in his hotel room alone and eats the bland tasting meal.

 

Liam’s house is just as beautiful as it always has been. He was assigned a job with the engineering corps, so he gets to live in the center of the New Castle district, right along with the other science based workers. Those are the people who the council deemed both intelligent and capable enough to create the solutions to the problems their world faces – despite how few. Liam is one of the luckier ones, he thinks, despite the fact that the system is meant to avoid anyone being considered _lucky._ But Liam had developed the most recent form of identification scanner, and during so the office he’d been working in had supposedly been targeted by the rebellion.

He's not so sure about that, now, but he’s never questioned the story before.

In the explosion in the building, Liam had lost most of the feeling in his right leg and has to walk with a crutch now, but he’s never seen his friend get down about it. When he knocks on Liam’s front door, he’s greeted with a happy smile from the other end and a warm welcome inside.

Liam’s cane is thin and metal, but it doesn’t look like he’s relying on it quite as much as he had been the last time he’d seen him. “You want a cuppa?” Liam asks and motions towards the kitchen.

“Sure.” He knows that when he scans his finger and gets it, he’ll lose his cup with his supper, but that’s all right.

“Make yourself at home. I’ll go grab it.” He shrugs and sits on the couch, petting the cat that eventually crawls up on his lap and nuzzles at his arm. He’s only ever met a few people who were allowed to have pets – Liam being one of them – and it was always something to do with an inability to have children. Liam can’t have children now because of the explosion, so he got a cat. He’s always felt bad for those people, but at least the cat it cute.

When Liam returns with two cups of tea, he realizes he didn’t have to scan his finger.

Wait – he’s – he’s _never_ had to when he’s come to Liam’s house. Liam’s cheated the system. Louis didn’t want to tell him if his friend was a part of the rebellion because the answer is yes.

He feels a bit sick as he sits back and takes a drink of his tea. Liam sits on the love seat beside him and starts chatting away, like there’s nothing wrong. “Gemma’s due over in a few hours. She just got off of work a few hours ago, so I think she’ll be over in about fifteen minutes. Do you want me to tell her you’re here or let it be a surprise?”

“I’ll let it be a surprise.” He says with a taut smile, unsure of how to sort through the emotions wracking his brains. Does he know _anyone_ that isn’t a part of the rebellion? Is he even safe to be here? What if there are really people who are a part of that organization who want him dead? Would Gemma let that happen? Would Louis?

“You okay, H? You look a little pale.” He swallows hard and nods, forces himself to take a deep breath.

“Yeah, sorry. I’ve just been thinking a bit too much about things lately.”

“Ah, aren’t we all. Just try and relax a little, yeah? I hate seeing you tense, mate.” He nods shortly and tries to spark up the best small talk he can after that. Liam invites him to stay over for the night if he’d like to, which Harry decides to accept, and they just wait together with the telly playing for Gemma to arrive.

It’s about twenty minutes later when the door opens and his sister comes in. She looks almost exactly the same as he remembers her to be, maybe a little healthier looking. There had been a few months at the end of her living with the family that she got very frail, because her meal portioning’s kept getting smaller. He’d been told it was something to do with her health and never questioned it, but seeing her now, looking happy and energetic, he wants to question it. He wants to ask why his Father was starving her and what he was trying to get out of that. He wants to ask what the hell is going on – but he knows better. He knows better than the question the system that is keeping them all alive.

“Harry!” She says, almost a squeal, and wraps him up in a tight hug. She has a pair of white gloves on her hands when she goes in to hug him, but when she pulls away, they’re gone and she’s tucking them into her purse. “Hate those things, but I just got my nails done so I didn’t want them chipped while I was driving, aren’t they nice?” She asks, deflecting his attention away from what he should _really_ be paying attention to.

He realizes, then, that she’s been doing this for years. She’s become the master at taking his attention away from the things she didn’t want him to notice – just like Liam. His breath catches in his throat for just a moment, but he passes it off with a smile, like he’s just really happy to see her. “I love them, Gems. Did Lou do them?”

“She did!” Gemma lights up whenever she gets the chance to talk about Lou. Harry is one of the few people who know about how long Lou and Gemma have been dating – so he loves to bring it up. He just wishes she was comfortable enough to tell him all of her secrets.

When they eat, Gemma places her finger on Liam’s scanner, just like Liam and Harry do, so they each get their own portions of food, perfectly created to support all of them. He’s not sure if Liam’s participation with the rebellion is known to the Following, but if it is, he clearly isn’t being punished in any way for it. He’s given a full meal, just like Gemma is, which makes him cringe when he only gets chicken, rice, and tea again.

“Is dad angry with you?” Gemma asks, eyebrow quirked when they all sit down to eat together.

“I think he’s upset that I ran off. Probably wants me to come home, if for nothing other than better meals. It’s almost working. I kind of want to go back before my week is up.” Liam and Gemma exchange a look before Gemma pulls his plate across the table and the both of them put some of what each of them have onto his. He stares at them, wide eyed and unsure how to react before Gemma shoves it back.

“It’s a shame they’re doing that, maybe you should go back.” She says with a wink. Liam’s house only has audio monitoring, something he’d learned is only given to people who are given in home physical therapy, because it’s considered invasive to monitor medical practices. He looks at the two of them, still confused and unsure of what they’re trying to tell him, before he just eats his meal in silence.

 

Gemma sleeps with Harry that night, the two of them curled up in bed together the same way they had when they were smaller. “Liam and I are moving in together.” She says softly, almost like she’s unsure if Harry is asleep yet or not.

“What? What about Lou?” He asks, eyebrows furrowed, but his voice is quiet enough that he hopes the audio systems won’t pick it up. Most of their in-depth conversations about Lou had been hand written, completely out of fear that their Father would have found out.

“We’re still together, of course, but dad has been pressuring me more and more to move things along with Liam. He wants grandchildren. So does mum, of course. But I figure dad will be long dead before it’s expected that we do anything more than move in together.” She says it quiet enough that Harry has to strain to hear each of the words, but he’s frowning by the time she gets them all out.

“I wish he could just accept the two of you.” She sighs softly.

“Liam and I are really good friends, so it’s not like it will be awful for the two of us to share a home. Plus, Lou has to come here when we want to have sex anyway, because her and my home both have the visual surveillance.” Harry makes a face and Gemma laughs, but it’s okay, he really is starting to remember that this is Gemma, his sister, not just the rebellion leading criminal he should think of her as. “I think it’ll be okay.”

“Can I tell you something kind of … personal?” He says, still whispering.

“Sure, Haz.”

“I think I kind of maybe lost my virginity yesterday?” He says and her eyes widen, eyebrows shot up.

“What do you mean maybe? Did something go inside of something else or not?”

“Well I mean like,” He flushes. Gemma has always been bold, able to say whatever she wants to say without any shame. It’s why he always thought she would make the better ruler than he would. “He had like, fingers… but not his dick.”

“Wait, _his?”_ Gemma asks with a grin on her face. “When did this happen? Last I heard you were crushing on Mary-Anne from college.” Harry groans.

“Gems, that was like, two whole years ago.”

“That’s why I’m so exicted!” She says, almost too loudly. “Who is he?”

“His name is Louis.” He says. He knows it was a low blow, a terrible way to see the recognition on her face, but the barely half a second that it does flash across her face tells him that everything that Louis had said was true.

“You have a Louis and I have a Lou. How romantic.” She says and sticks her tongue out.

“Yeah, yeah. I think we should sleep now.” She nods.

“Good night, Haz.”

 

 

When Harry arrives back home, his mother wraps her arms around him tightly and goes on and on about how happy she is that he made it home safely. “Did you have a good time? How was Liam’s house?” She asks with a smile.

“It was good! Gemma and Liam are thinking about moving in together, so I got to see her quite a bit.” He says, long since having felt the guilt about lying to his parents when it comes to Gemma. He’s always lied for Gemma about one thing or another, so he really shouldn’t feel this bad about knowing she’s a part of the rebellion, should he?

“Harry. Come with me, please.” Is all his Father says, emerging from the doorway at the bottom of the stairs. His voice has the same lilt of disappointment that he’s only ever had in the times that Harry has been in trouble, so he furrows his eyebrows as he nods and follows him. The doorway leads up to a second staircase, off to a wing of the house that cannot be accessed except through that door.

Harry has only been through here half a dozen times in his life, despite how many times he should have been back here. He _should_ spend most of his time in these back rooms at his Father’s side, watching and learning the way he commanded his people. Instead, he always preferred reading about it, reading textbooks of how his grandfathers had always led and kept the people in check. Something about the history was always more fascinating than the reality being played out in front of him.

He takes a turn that he’s never taken before, opens a door with his thumb print and tells Harry to go in first.

The second he walks inside, Harry feels sick. There are screens filling an entire wall, all filming what look like cells. On the left of the wall, a glass pane takes up what looks to be almost the entire wall. It’s what’s on the other side that makes his knees feel wobbly.

It’s Zayn.

Zayn’s strapped by his left arm to the wall, sitting on the floor but his arm suspended in the air. Harry’s eyes immediately fill with tears as he sees his friend sitting there, looking as if he’s unconscious. “Zayn.” He says, and he doesn’t think he’s ever heard his own voice sound so pain filled.

“This is what happens when someone is involved with the Rebellion, Harry. This is something you need to learn.”

“No, you just want me to tell you that you were right about Zayn.” He says, his eyes filling with tears. “This isn’t about what happens when someone is with the rebellion. Where’s your proof that he’s a part of it?” His Father is looking down on him with almost completely darkened eyes, anger clear in his expression.

“We do not need proof, son. Reasonable suspicion is more than enough to sentence someone to death.” The tears roll down Harry’s face faster, then.

“You can’t kill him.”

“Why not?” He doesn’t have a reason. There isn’t a reason that he should be able to come up with to stop him from killing someone who actually _is_ a part of the rebellion, but the pain is so tight in his chest that he doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t – he can’t feel his fingers except for a tingling sensation and each intake of breath feels like it’s harder to take than the last.

“Because – he’s my friend! You can’t – you can’t.” He runs to the glass and presses his hand against it, as if that would do anything to make Zayn wake up, to make him see him and see how sorry he is for all of this happening. He doesn’t want this to happen – he can’t let it happen.

He stands there for a moment, probably at least a few minutes before Zayn’s eyes open and he looks around, the panic clear on his face as he tries to pull away the restraint holding his arm.

“If he’s willing to die for the rebellion, it will be here, not in their atrocious acts of terror that they unleash on the city.” Harry cries harder.

“What terrorist acts? I haven’t seen anything!” He nearly yells. He still looks angry, but that seems to have pushed him over the threshold. He comes to Harry and punches him, right in his face, making him fall back against the glass wall with a thud. He takes a deep breath through the pain and brings his hand up to his face.

“Have you suddenly started supporting the rebellion? That must be the case since you’re defending someone who is so clearly a member of it.”

“No, I haven’t.” He says, wiping away the tears. “But I know that you’re not going to kill Zayn because of his possible involvement with the Rebellion. You’re going to kill him for the same reason that you cut back my food portioning’s, to punish me for some crime that you seem to think I have committed.” He says, standing back up. “You’re going to kill him because you think it will make me trust you, remember where I belong in society despite the fact that I’ve never done anything to deserve any of this. You’re punishing me because you don’t want me to run away from all of this like Gemma did; you want to make sure you keep me in line, am I right?” He pauses for a moment and glances back at Zayn, “You’re going to kill Zayn and destroy every last shred of trust I’ve ever had for you, and then you’ll have to kill me, too, because a system that can kill my best friend on the terms of reasonable suspicion is not a system that I can continue to stand behind.” He keeps his voice low as he speaks, making sure he never raises his voice. His father glares at him with each word, but the message seems to have gotten across.

Harry watches as he walks to a touch screen computer beside the glass and stares at Harry a moment longer. Then he presses a button and Harry’s chest tightens. “Zayn Malik.” A voice says over the loud-speaker. “Do you support the following?” Harry watches as Zayn continues to sit still and doesn’t say a word. It’s ten seconds before his father presses another button. Zayn screams, louder than he ever has and Harry’s eyes fill with tears once again. He covers his ears as his entire body folds in on itself, trembling.

“Father, there’s no need for this!” He shouts. He presses another button. The speaker comes over the intercom once again.

“Let me out of here!” Is what Zayn says the second time, then he screams again, but it’s muffled by how he’s clearly biting into the material of his shirt.

It’s two more times before Zayn’s body goes limp and Harry passes out.

 

When Harry wakes, he’s in his own bedroom. His first thoughts are of Zayn, and he cries. He cries harder than he ever has, snot drips from his nose and he sobs pathetically as the thoughts of what happened to Zayn come back to the front of his mind. It’s his fault. If he wouldn’t have called Zayn that night and let him take him to that party, he’d still be alive. If he wouldn’t have left for that week and would have just stayed like his father wanted him to, Zayn would still be alive. It’s all his fault and everything in his body aches with that realization.

He can’t do this anymore.

He’d been raised with the knowledge that the Rebellion was the only thing that killed – that the Rebellion was what took people away from their families and ruined lives and destroyed things. He’d been raised, told over and over, that the Following healed and rekindled the broken, that it was the good voice in a world full of human greed and evil. He’d been told his entire life that the Following was the source of good in the world and those who went against it were the kinds of people who wanted everything for themselves, who wanted the world to go back to the times when there was the ability to be greedy and kill and destroy.

That just doesn’t feel right anymore. He feels like everything he’s ever been told is a lie – that all of the teachings he’d gone through were lies that were meant to keep him in place, to ground him and make sure he never realized the truth about the world. The announcements on the television that remind the people of the evils that were in the world before the Following was created, the pledge to the following that every child says in school in the mornings, the essays they were told to write about the good of the Following – it’s all put in place at such a young age to prevent anyone from ever realizing the truth.

This is the reason Gemma left – all of it is slowly starting to make sense and everything is slowly coming together the more he thinks about it. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do – but he knows that he can’t bring himself to stay here any longer. He doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to bring himself to live and face his father another day after he killed his best friend right in front of him.

He can’t.

He won’t.

 

When he goes downstairs for supper, he knows his face is still tear tracked. His father and mother are already sitting at the table, each of them with a glass of something in their hands, probably waiting for him to come down. He’s not going to eat with them, he’s just going to get his food and retreat to his room.

So when he goes to the dispenser and gets the same portion of chicken and rice – except one that looks fucking _smaller_ – he walks to his father and throws the plate on the ground in front of him before he goes out of the doors to the gardens.

 

The end of the day sun is bright, illuminating the back of his house in the same yellowing color that it had been the day before he left. Everything looks exactly the same and the world is still going on, even though Harry doesn’t think it should be. He thinks it needs to stop – that everyone needs to come and mourn the loss of the wonderful human being that was Zayn Malik.

He sits back against the peach tree in their backyard and watches as the sun sets. He remembers climbing this tree with Zayn when they were both kids, sitting up in the leaves and eating the fruits even though they had both been told not to. He remembers how Zayn would shove extras inside of his bag and put a finger over his lips to tell Harry not to say anything.

He remembers the day Zayn’s mum had been executed for being a part of the rebellion. But there had been solid evidence against her – or maybe Harry just hadn’t been old enough to realize that there wasn’t. Then he remembers the day Zayn got his job assignment, a paper organizer in the Cubes.

Everything that Louis had said to him is slowly coming together now. How the children of convicted rebels are given the worst life that the following can dish out, to make sure they die young and never have children of their own. He doesn’t know what he feels. Nothing, really, except numb everywhere. He doesn’t feel anything.

It’s a while before he hears footsteps behind him and his mother comes out to sit with him. “Hi, love.” She says softly and puts an arm around him. “How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know.” He says softly, but just the question alone was enough to make a few more tears fall from his eyes.

“I can imagine how hard it was to see that your friend was a part of the rebellion. But you have to remember that they’re against your father – they want him to die - but it’s not only him. They want every ruler to die, and that means you, too, Harry. You’ll become their next target when you take power and maybe then will you understand, love.”

“Maybe.” He says with a sniffle. He almost says that he isn’t going to take power – he isn’t going to take a job where he’s required to kill. He could never do that.

“Why don’t you come on inside now? Your father reset your meal plan so it would give out a second portion.”

“I’m not hungry. Not if he’s just going to continue to punish me for whatever I don’t even know what I did with not enough food. I don’t want to be the next Gemma.” Her eyes grow a bit sad with his words, but she shakes her head.

“He’s not punishing you, love. You know that he doesn’t have control over the food portions. It’s the nutritionist’s offices that analyze each person’s needs based on previous doctor visits. They make those decisions.” Harry shrugs.

“I’ll be in in a while. Don’t wait up for me.” Is all he says. She just sighs and stands, then goes inside without another word. He feels overwhelmed and completely unsure about what he’s supposed to do, but he knows he’ll figure it out.

Louis had told him to call Zayn if he wanted to speak to him, but now that he knows Gemma can get him in contact with Louis, he knows he can call her, too. He goes to bed that night with a sick feeling in his stomach, but he has to remember that it must have been for the best. His father wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for the best, for the good of the people. Why it hurts so bad, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t think he ever will, but he tries as hard as he can to just will away the tears that are forming in the bottoms of his eyelids.

He sits out at the trunk of that tree until the sun is long past down, and then goes inside. The house is quite, completely and totally silent as it usually is after Dinner Meal, and he goes up the stairs to his room. He sniffles again as he goes in through the door, trying not to let the memories of all the times he and Zayn were in this same spot get to him. He was a rebel – he shouldn’t mourn so deeply over his loss – but he can’t help it.

When he goes into his room, his Father is standing at the window, looking out at the night sky. “Harry.” He says quietly. “Can we have a discussion?”

“All right.” He says with a nod as the man opposite him turns to face him.

“I really am sorry you had to watch what happened today.” He sounds sincere, and Harry nods. His breath is caught in his throat, choked up by what feels like tears all over again. “If it makes you feel more at ease, we did find solid evidence that Zayn was involved in the rebellion.” The _after he died_ goes unsaid, but it only serves to make Harry’s heart hurt worse. “I just want to tell you son that there are many great things in this world that come from the Following, you know that, but there are too many people like Zayn who want to see the Following destroyed. Those are the people who we have to terminate. Otherwise, the system would collapse and the Old Times would be upon us, in the present.”

“I understand, Father.”

“There was no scorn against you, nor was it in any way a way to attack you, if that is what you believe I was attempting to do.”

“No, of course not.” He smiles, but it feels wrong. It makes sense that his father would need to show him an execution, seeing as it will be something he will one day have to oversee. “But can I ask you why you chose to execute Zayn, instead of someone like Louis Tomlinson?” His father’s eyes grow cold, hard, the same expressionless face he always seems to have on.

“We do not discuss Louis Tomlinson. He is, and will, find his place in that chamber one day. Whether it be at my hand or yours.” His Father coughs into the rag clutched into his fist after he speaks that time. “You cannot lose yourself, Harry. You have to remember who you are.”

“I do, Father.”

“Good. Sleep well, son. May the Following grant you a safe night.”

“You, as well. I’ll be calling Gemma before sleeping hours come about, so don’t worry if you hear my voice.”

“All right, son.” He says, and then he’s gone. Of course the Following is right – he has to just remember that. The Following is what keeps them safe, keeps them alive. Without it, the world would have ended hundreds of years ago and there wouldn’t even be a trace of humanity to remain.

 

“Hello, Harry!” Gemma says cheerfully as she answers the phone. “How are you this evening?” She sounds too happy, like she’s been able to spend time with Lou recently after not having been able to for a while. He hopes she can. He always wants the best for her.

“Hi, Gemma. I was actually wondering if you were with anyone right now?” He asks, keeping his voice flat and normal.

“No, I’m home alone. What’s going on, bud?”

“I’m just really… lonely. Do you think I could come see you sometime soon again?”

“Sure.” She says happily once again. “I do have to get going though, love. Sleeping Hours are about to start and I’d like to spend some quality time with _Liam_ before I sleep.”

“Okay, Gems. Good night.” He says and hangs up the phone. He’d hoped that talking with her would leave him feeling something – something better or relieving, but instead all he feels is pain. He hurts and he misses Zayn more than anything. But he forces himself to lay down anyway and try and sleep. Maybe that will numb the hurt.

 

It does, but only until he wakes in a sweat from a terror dream. He’d seen Zayn’s death over and over, done out in front of his eyes so many times until he felt physically ill.

So the first thought that came to mind was to leave.

He sits on the edge of his bed and stares out the window, watches as the cameras at the edge of the gate of their estate move back and forth slowly every forty seconds. He can’t sleep, but then again, he never really planned to in the first place. He put his shoes on over an hour ago, laced them up tightly and put on the rest of his black clothes. It would be easy to just walk out, to go through the spot he and Zayn had learned was a camera blind area when they were thirteen and disappear. He could go find Louis and escape from all of the boundaries that his life has built up around him.

He stands, goes to his closet and pulls out his old backpack from school. He’d long since cleaned it out and sent the papers inside of it to be recycled, so it’s empty. He places his tablet inside, followed by several pairs of trousers and just as many shirts. It’s nearly full by the time he packs up his clothes, but he still shoves pants and socks in as well.

The entire house is silent as he opens up his window and crawls out. He looks back on the house one last time as he walks through the garden, then climbs over the fence where the cameras can’t see him. He’s sure that another camera is probably picking up what he’s doing, but there won’t be anyone monitoring the cameras inside of the grounds until the next shift comes in half an hour. The only cameras on the estate being guarded every moment of the day are those that surround the manor.

Then, he runs.

 

**PART THREE: The Searching.**

He’s walked as far as his legs will take him without aching when he finally sits. He sits down on a bench somewhere on the farthest outskirts of London when he pulls his phone out. His parents are long since sleeping and the point of curfew has long since passed, so he knows sitting for very long will only lead to getting himself arrested. He sits for just long enough to rest his legs before he’s up again, walking down through the darkness of the alleys and just trying to find a quiet place where he can make a phone call, but also a quiet place he _recognizes._ He has to be able to give a place to give to someone to pick him up, but after being sheltered for so much of his life, he doesn’t really know where to go.

He calls Gemma anyway.

She picks up after the second ring, and as soon as she answers, the panic is clear in her voice. “Harry? Is everything all right? Why are you calling me so late?” He takes a deep breathe before he speaks. His next words will define his entire life.

“Gemma, I need you to come pick me up.” She’s quiet on the other end for a moment, likely weighing her options and whether or not it would be a good idea, but she sighs softly.

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know. I just started walking.” She’s quiet again for a while, then there’s some mumbling on the other end of the line, before Gemma speaks again.

“Liam’s tracking your phone up now.” He bites his lip as anxiety wells up in his stomach. If Liam can do that – that probably means anyone who his father asks to could do the same thing. That makes him nervous, just because of how easy he would be to track. “Haz, you’re hours away by car from where I can get to you. You need to just go back on home for tonight. Liam says there are no signals out for request for you to be tracked, so no one knows you’re gone. I’ll be there in the morning to come get you, okay? I promise.” Harry sighs again. There’s logic in Gemma’s voice, concern clear as day, but Harry doesn’t want to listen to logic right now. He feels like his entire life has just been destroyed right in front of him and going back feels like it would be a death sentence.

“Can you call Louis? I know he’s barely an hour out by car, and if there are no tracking signals, I’m safe to keep walking, aren’t I?”

“So you knew, then.” Is what she says instead.

“Yeah. I didn’t want to say anything but now… Louis and I need to talk.”

“You and I need to talk, too. I’ll transfer your call to his phone now.” Harry hums his agreement, then the line starts ringing again.  

“Hello?” Louis asks on the other end, voice clearly defensive and unsure of who he is. He sounds tired, too, and Harry almost feels bad for a moment for waking him before he realizes that he doesn’t have any time to feel bad. He just needs to get somewhere safe.

“Hi, Louis. It’s Harry.” There’s silence on the other line for just a moment, but then Louis finally speaks.

“Hi, Harry. Did you just call to chat because I’m kind of busy – “

“I need you to come get me.” He’s trying to be short and to the chase – but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how to be bold and certain and doesn’t know how to grasp someone’s attention in the way he should be able to. “I can – I’ll tell you what happened later but I just. I can’t go home. Not now, not ever. I can’t.”

“Are you sure, Harry? If I come get you, that’s your commitment. There’s no going back.”

“I’m sure.”

“I’ll see you in an hour. Keep walking down the road you’re on and maybe it can be more like fifty minutes.”

“Okay. See you then.” The line goes dead after that, and Harry’s heart is pounding in his chest. He’s hyper aware of all of the cameras that are surrounding him – monitoring his every movement and likely signaling the peace monitors that he’s out and about on the street instead of inside of his home during the hours that citizens are forbidden to be on the streets. He should have listened to Gemma, should have gone home before he told Louis to come get him. His likelihood of getting arrested is so high that it’s making him sweat. His palms feel wet and he feels like his heart is pounding, but he has to keep going.

He starts running once again, until the boundaries of the city line are passed.

 

The minutes tick on and the air around him feels colder. Each step is making his feet ache worse than the last, and the pavement beneath his shoes is unforgiving. He’s certain that a blister has probably formed somewhere on the bottom of his feet because each step makes s shot of heat and pain strike up his leg.

He’s shaking – but he can’t really tell at that point if it’s from the cold or the anxiety. There’s something really terrifying about being in between city lines at night. All of the terrible stories he’d been raised with as a kid of the horrors that came from the Outlands started creeping up into the corners of his brain as soon as he went out into them. It’s irrational – he knows that – but unlearning something isn’t as easy as he wishes it could be.

Finally, _finally,_ he sees a set of lights coming towards him and a smile breaks out on his face. He steps to the side of the road, just in case Louis doesn’t see him, but stays still. It’s been a long night so far and all he wants is to curl up and tell Louis what happened, to cry and scream about Zayn to someone who understands.

The car speeds right by him, and he doesn’t notice until it’s already going by that it’s a peace control officer’s vehicle. The obvious embellishments of the silver and gold lines down the side with the three added spot lights for when they’re looking for someone.

He’s never known the control officers to be out past curfew – not when there shouldn’t be any citizens out for them to have to control – but with each passing moment he’s starting to realize that much of what he’s been told wasn’t the entire truth. That makes him nervous.

He keeps walking, his spirits slowly starting to feel a bit more down, but he has to remember that this is for the best. He refuses to stand by his father another moment when he can just so easily murder his best friend right in front of his eyes.

He has to take another deep breath to keep himself from crying yet again. In and out – in and out – but it doesn’t do much. The pain is still blooming in his heart with the feeling of such a hard loss, but he just keeps going. There’s nothing else he can do.

His phone rings, cutting through the silence surrounding him and making him jump, but he grabs it and hits the accept button. It’s an unknown number – blocked and restricted – but he answers it anyway with the hopes that it’s Louis.

“Hi, Harry.” He says calmly. “Liam just told me that your father does have trackers looking up on your location right now. He can only block them so long, so I need you to toss your phone as far as you can behind you and start running. I’m about five minutes out. Do it now.” Then the line goes dead and Harry sighs.

He turns around, just for a moment, then tosses his phone as far away from him as he can, then starts running. His feet hurt worse when he runs and his backpack thumps against his back with each step, but he keeps going. He has to.

He’s spent enough of his life working out – something he’s enjoyed doing for stress relief – but this doesn’t feel the same. He feels nervous and anxious and unsure of what’s going to happen. Instead of the normal feeling of relief that would wash over him in moments like this, he just feels scared and hurt.

Finally, there are more lights. The car stops and the door opens. Harry gets inside without a doubt in his mind and closes the door. Louis, without a word, presses on the gas and drives faster than Harry has ever seen anyone drive, all with the same calm and serene look on his face that he always seems to have.

“Rest for a minute,” He says, finally looking over to Harry. “But we’re going to have to talk as soon as we get home. Gemma and Liam are probably going to be there by the time we get there as well, but if they aren’t I’ll let you sleep until they get there.” Harry nods. He’s not entirely sure if he’ll be able to sleep, but he leans his head against the window of the passenger’s door anyway.

Eventually, the stress and the hum of the car around him helps him fall asleep.

 

“I don’t know what happened, but he sounded just – so nervous.” Harry wakes to the sound of Gemma’s voice, his head pounding and a nauseous feeling in his stomach. When he opens his eyes and sits up, he’s been laid out on a couch and Liam, Gemma, and Louis are all sitting on the other couches, talking in hushed voices.

“Hi.” He says, figuring it would be the kind thing to do to tell them he’s woken up.

“Hi, Harry.” Gemma says with a kind smile.

“How are you feeling?” Liam asks with the same look on his face, but there’s concern etched into his features as well.

“I’m all right, I think.”

“What happened?” Louis asks. “What changed your mind?” Harry looks down at the ground and folds his hands in his lap, willing away the tears as the images of Zayn flash back into his head. He takes a little breath and finally looks up a few moments later.

“My father wasn’t happy with me, not from the moment I came home. I’m pretty sure – I’m pretty sure he knew about the party night. So he pulls me into the back room and into this place I’ve never seen before. Then there’s like – all these people who are so clearly being kept there against their will and I’ve never, ever heard of the Following taking prisoners. They were meant to be a coalition of peace, right? How is keeping and torturing prisoners peaceful?” His voice breaks and his hands are shaking. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to believe anymore.

“Hey, it’s okay, H.” Gemma comes over and wraps an arm around his shoulders, sitting beside him and cuddling up in the same way they used to when they were kids. “What happened after that?”

“Then he walked over to this other wall and there was like this glass thing – probably one way glass – and fucking –“ More tears fall. “It was Zayn. He made me watch Zayn die because of _reasonable suspicion_ that he was involved with the rebellion. He didn’t even have solid proof. Just _suspicion_. Then he had the – the _audacity_ to come in my room and claim that there was proof after he was already dead.”

The entire room falls silent around him, then, the atmosphere suddenly thickening. He knows that everyone here knew Zayn, too, that he isn’t the only one who was affected so horribly, crushed so emotionally, but after growing up with someone – it hurts like watching a family member die. He doesn’t know how to deal with this or how to process it and he can’t – he can’t handle it. Gemma’s hand is still rubbing soothing circles and he’s doing his best to not cry any harder, but it’s too much.

“I’m so sorry you had to watch that.” Liam says, biting his lip, but he can see the sadness in his face, too. Liam had left before they were much older than fourteen, but he’d still known Zayn with the same kind of friendship he’d had with him for years. Gemma is staring off to the side of the room, an angry look on her face and Harry sniffles again.

“I’m revoking my inheritance of his power. I’ll make the formal announcement in the morning.” Harry says softly, but his voice is still strong. Liam looks over to him and Harry can tell that he’s still trying not to show any emotion over what happened, just by the way his eyes look just slightly brighter from the threat of tears.

“Haz, you should take a little bit to think about that” Liam says with a gentle smile. Harry nods his agreement. “Are you hungry? Want some tea or anything?”

“I don’t have anything on my –“ He almost says that he doesn’t have any meals available on his scanner, but then he just nods instead. “Sorry. Forgot. Sure.” Louis chuckles just a bit from the other side of the room and Harry just shrugs.

Liam stands and Louis gives Gemma a look, which must mean that he wants her to go, too. The second that the two of them are out of the room, Louis comes over and sits down beside him. “You sure you’re okay?”

“No. I just lost my best friend.” He sniffles a bit and wipes at his eyes. “And my parents, too, I guess. Since I can’t go back.” Louis puts a hand on his thigh, thumb rubbing soothing little circles into the material of his jeans.

“I won’t worry about swearing you in for a few days. You should take a while to recover, adjust, relax for a bit and clear your head. I know before I said you can’t go back, but that was really rude of me. I can see now that you may have just made this decision because of your pain and anger from losing Zayn, so in a few days if you decide to go back… There won’t be any hard feelings on our end. You should call your father and tell him you went to Gemmas, just to clear your head. Give yourself the oprotunity to go back should you make that decision.” Harry doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just nods. It doesn’t make sense that Louis is seen as such a criminal, someone who destroys lives when he’s been nothing but kind and wonderful to him.

“Can I just – can you just like –“ Louis quirks an eyebrow, but it doesn’t look scornful, just curious. “Maybe cuddle for a bit?”

“You sure you don’t want Gemma?”

“Yeah. I’ll sleep with her tonight, just …”

“Yeah, c’mere.” Harry lets Louis wrap his arms around him, then rests his head on Louis’ shoulder. He smells nice – the same nice smell he can remember from the night he’d gotten drunk – and it feels nice to just feel _safe._ At home he’d always felt safe, he supposes, but there was always that underlying anxiety that came from the thought of his father being home and having something to say. It was always something – always something that needed his attention or something that he would worry about. Here, in this moment, he feels safe and like he doesn’t have to _worry._ He misses Zayn and his heart aches for the loss of his friend, but he knows it’s okay.

Louis rubs his hands in circles around his back, the gentle touches comforting enough and soft enough to make him feel at peace. “Thank you.” He says quietly, and Louis’ hum in response is more than enough.

“We brought you some biscuits and tea, Haz. _Somebody_ hasn’t gotten our newest load of food yet, so that’s all we have. I’m sorry.” Gemma says, and he’s certain that he’s talking about Liam judging by the pout on his face. “Should we um,” She says, voice apprehensive, “Go? You guys good?” He’s suddenly a little glad that he’d told Gemma about his little _thing_ with Louis, or else he’s certain she would have made a much bigger deal about it.

“You guys are free to go. I’ll see you in the morning.” Louis says and Gemma nods.

“Wait – are you leaving, Gemma?” Harry asks, trying not to sound as sad as he feels at the thought of not being able to sleep with her for the night.

“Yeah, sorry bud. I gotta get back to Lou. But I’ll see you in the morning.”

“All right. Bye.” She gives a smile and nods before her and Liam both are walking out of the room after leaving the tray of biscuits and the mug of tea on the side table. “You didn’t say she was going to leave. Is this like – is this your house? Is it even okay for me to stay here? Shit I didn’t even like –“ More tears rush to his eyes and he just wants to cry, but most of it is still probably for Zayn, just triggered by everything else.

“Hey, hey it’s all right. I wouldn’t have brought you here if you weren’t welcome to come here. Everyone goes home to their own homes at night, just to stay under the radar. Liam’s rigged all of their cameras up so that the video plays on loop and makes it look like they’re at home sleeping right now. Everything’s fine. You don’t have to worry, Harry.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“I have that spare room you slept in last time, or you can sleep with me. It’s your choice.”

“I think I’ll sleep alone tonight.” He says and Louis nods. He has a feeling he won’t sleep much, if at all, with all of the thoughts running so rampant through his head, so he doesn’t want to burden Louis with all of that. Really, though, he just wants to be alone. It’s been such a long time since he’s had the pleasure of being able to lock a door and not worry about coming in – and it’s been even longer since he’s been able to sleep without having to worry if the next day would mean getting thrown into power. “Can you show me my room?” Louis nods again and helps Harry up, takes his hand, and leads him down the hallway.

His house is relatively small, clearly created for someone who was meant to live in the cubes, but he isn’t going to worry about that. It’s hard for him to think about the things that the system has created without feeling guilty – without feeling like his entire world is crumbling around him. Everything he’s ever known he’s just left behind. It’s going to take a lot of soul searching and thinking for him to be able to deal with that, but he knows that it’s something he’s just going to have to do.

“Night, curly.” Is what Louis says as he shows him his room. “I’ll come wake you for breakfast in the morning.”

“Thanks.”

 

In the morning, Louis wakes him up as promised. They’re all sat around a breakfast table, and Louis is in the kitchen, cooking. He’s still slowly getting used to the idea of not being distribtuted exactly what his body needs, but he trusts Louis. He trust him more than most people, he thinks. Both for giving him the opportunity to have a life that he otherwise would never have had and for showing him that there is good outside of following the rules.

“Thank you all for being so kind to me.” He says to no one in particular as he sips at his still hot-mug of tea.

 “That’s what we do, bud. We’re all here for you.” Gemma says with a smile. He doesn’t know how she seems to comfortable or how she seems like she has been here for so long when she’d always hidden it so well other than her relationship with Lou, but watching her interact with her environment so easily really gives a clue to exactly how long she’s been around here.

“How did you even get here? What happened?” She smiles softly.

“I never believed a word that came out of Father’s mouth. I always felt like he was keeping something from me or lying in one way or another.” She starts. “Mum was much less conformative when you were too young to understand. She would sing to me at night with these songs that had stories of how the people would tear down the foundations of their government and only then would they find their happiness. I think it was mostly her doing, since she always showed me all of the real bullshit Father would spew at us and the world. So, I ran away from home. It was just the first time and then I met Louis. He took me in and gave me a place to stay until I decided I needed to go back home. We stayed in contact after that, and it was probably two years before I even brought up word of the rebellion, but as soon as I did, Louis told me everything. Now I’m here.”

“And Father… knows?”

“No. Not entirely, anyway. He knows I’m against him and he knows that I’m unhappy with his rules, but I really don’t think he’s entirely aware of my full involvement.” Harry nods. “You know he’ll be completely aware of yours after the video you put out today, though, right?”

“I know.” He says with a soft sigh. “I think that’s what I want. At least that little spiteful part of me wants that. I want him to know that what he did was what drove me over the edge and made me completely give up on him.”

“That’s okay, H. I’m glad you decided what you wanted with your life.” He nods again.

“Where’s Louis?”

“He’s in the shower. He’s usually up by sunrise, so he’s already several hours into his day.”

“You’re not usually here this much, are you?”

“No. I’m actually rarely ever here. But if you’re around I’ll come by more often, yeah?”

“Thanks, Gems.” He grabs three pancakes and puts them on his own plate, then covers them in the syrup sitting on the table. He’s never actually been able to serve himself food – and the idea of it is almost nerve wracking – but just the simple act of putting food on his plate and taking as much as he wants feels freeing. “What’s going to happen after this? Where do we go? Is there even a way to take down the Following?”

“We haven’t directly engaged in any kind of war yet. That’s Louis’ call. But I’m certain that there’s some kind of plan brewing up in his head.” Harry doesn’t have any kind of response to that, other than just a nod, so he stays silent. The threat of war is terrifying – everything he’s ever learned about the Old Times terrifies him but the threat and idea of people all around him dying is the most scary of them all.

 

Louis comes down almost a full hour later. Harry had been counting the minutes, the anxiety welling up in his stomach with the thought of all of the wasted water he used just to shower. What could one person do in the shower for an entire hour? He can’t imagine. He’s got a pair of sweatpants on and a hoodie, skin of his chest clearly visible through the dip of the neckline.

“Louis?”

“What’s up, Curly?”

“Can I talk to you for a little bit?”

“Sure. Let’s go for a walk.” Harry nods and gets up, follows Louis back up to the roof where they’d had their last conversation. Once they’re both seated, staring off into the almost mid-day sky, Harry speaks.

“Convince me.”

“What?”

“I said you weren’t allowed to convince me, before. I change my mind. Convince me. Tell me why you believe so firmly in the rebellion.” Louis is looking over at him with this look on his face, a confused look so clear.

“Come lay in my lap, let me play with your hair while I do.” He nods and crawls over into Louis’ lap. No one other than Gemma has ever played with his hair, so the feeling of fingers stranding through it makes him feel perfectly at home. “I want you to think about everything in your life that’s restricted.” He says first.

“What do you mean?”

“I know you were angry about your food portioning, but what else in your life do you think you deserve more of but can’t because you’re a part of the following? Freedom? Privacy? _Freedom?”_

“What is _privacy?”_ Harry asks, eyebrow quirked. Louis’ hands go still.

“Oh, Harry. I’m so sorry.” He says softly. “Privacy is right now. Privacy is our ability to do this, to have a cuddle and speak about anything we want without worry that someone is listening in. Privacy is being able to go into your own home and not have the fear that someone is monitoring the Visual Systems within it that day. Without feeling like you’re being watched. Privacy is being able to do the things you want to do by yourself and knowing that it will be just that: by yourself. No one else has to know what you’re doing. No one else gets to listen to your phone converstations. No one. Just you and the person you’re talking with.”

“But that – that wouldn’t work. Then how would the Following know who is and isn’t breaking the rules?”

“That’s the thing about it, Haz. There are some rules that are put in place because they damage the sanctity of the people, and there are some rules that are put in place because the Following is threatened by them.” Louis pauses, but he seems to know that Harry doesn’t understand. “Having a private phone conversation affects the government. The threat of someone speaking of a rebellion or their involvement threatens the Following. Something that threatens the sanctity of the people would be me waving a gun about in the crowd square on gathering day. Not being allowed to do that makes sense. But I should be able to express my disdain with the government if I chose and not be executed for it, should I not?”

“No, no. That’s – speaking negatively against the following is treason. How could anyone not see it like that?”

“So, when you said you were angry that you got smaller food portionings you commited treason.” Harry blinks.

“No – I –“

“If any citizen had said something like that in front of a peace control officer, they would have been taken in and charged with treason.”

“No they wouldn’t have –“

“There was this notion in the old world that people were allowed to speak about whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, as long as what they said didn’t harm the general public in any way.”

“How did their government not collapse?”

“Because there’s a difference between me saying ‘I want to kill the leader of the Following’ and ‘I am _going_ to kill the leader of the following’. Is there not?”

“I – well – yes. I suppose there is.” Harry says, eyebrows furrowed. “None of this is written anywhere in any of the books I’ve read.”

“Most textbooks from the old world were burned or lost in the wars. Since I knew Simon, I got the chance to read his books after he died. They’re Old World.”

“What else was there?”

Louis goes on, tells him about all of the freedoms that the people of the old world had and how he believes that those are the same freedoms that the people deserve now. He explains without complaint the meanings of each of them, explains without protest how there was a thing called a _trial,_ where the evidence and facts were presented before a person and others got to decide their fate. It all seems to make sense and none of it seems like it would really threaten the lives of the people – so it doesn’t make sense that the Following doesn’t have these things.

“They don’t have these things because they don’t want us to have them, Harry. They don’t teach us about freedom because as soon as the notion is put into our heads, we can’t let go of it. That’s just human nature, is it not? To want something so innately. But if a person doesn’t know what it is they so desire, how can they try to get it?”

“I – I don’t know.”

“Convinced, yet?”

“Can we talk about the sex thing a little more, too?” Louis laughs, a genuine and full laugh for the first time all day. Harry smiles at the sound and watches as the sun sets down below the buildings in front of them. They’ve been out here all day, but neither of them care. Harry had told his father he’d return within a fortnight, so he has enough time before he really has to worry about being back.

But he’s not entirely sure he wants to go back.

Maybe Louis had been right. Knowing about freedom and not having it feels wrong and terrifying.

 

“Louis.” Harry says softly in the night, hoping that the other man is still awake.

“Hm?” He asks softly.

“Can I … can I kiss you again?”

“Why do you want that?” Louis asks, flicking the light of the lamp on beside the bed. The glow casts a perfect shadow over his face. He’s probably one of the most attractive people Harry has ever met.

“I don’t um – I don’t know. I just – I want to be close to you.”

“Do you still want me to fuck you?”

“Well… yeah.” Harry’s face is burning. He’s not sure if it’s from embarrassment or shame that he’s even asking about these things, but Louis just has this little smirk on his face that seems like he’s enjoying tormenting Harry.

Louis is kissing him again before he can really think much, though, and its hot and dirty and everything Harry could have asked for. Louis’ mouth on his is one of the best feelings he could ever describe, and the way he grins down against Harry’s clothed cock as he climbs on top of him makes it even better. Louis bites his lower lip while he flicks the pad of his thumb over Harry’s nipple through his clothes, making him arch his back and moan quietly.

Louis, as it turns out, is incredibly talented with his hands.

He gets their clothes off quickly, between each kiss and each touch, roaming little touches all over Harry’s body, making him squirm and his cock harden in his pants. It’s all just a little overwhelming, but it feels incredible.

“I’m gonna finger you open, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Harry says, his breaths coming out in pants already, watching as Louis grabs the lube and spreads it out over his fingers.

The first finger inside of him makes his breath hitch, and his head falls back against the bed. It isn’t until Louis crooks the digit and finds his prostate that he cries out. Louis is relentless, massages his finger in that single spot until he’s seeing stars and the heat is already pooling up in his stomach.

Then there’s another finger and he cries out, arches his back and he feels like he really _does_ see stars.

Louis has three fingers inside of him, all rubbing against his prostate, before he finally pulls them away. He wraps his hand around Harry's cock, their eyes meeting for a moment.

“Ready, baby?”

"Please." Harry whispers. "Please fuck me. I need it, need you." Harry feels like his limbs are already turning to jello. His lips feel bitten raw, he’s certain his hair is disheveled, and he’s even more certain that his face is still flushed. Louis doesn’t really even look fazed, but rather he has a calm look on his face, nothing giving way to his arousal other than the wide blown pupils of his eyes.

"What do you want, Harry?" Harry nearly jumps out of the bed at the question. He thinks Louis just enjoys making him squirm, enjoys making him feel uncomfortable in that little way that makes his face flame and his cock twitch.

"I want you! I need you, god Louis please! I'm yours- I'm all yours! Please fuck me, daddy!" He knows he sounds desperate, but he’s almost so hard it _hurts._ Then he realizes exactly what he’s just said and his face feels hot again, the shame bubbling up in his stomach and his mouth snaps shut.

Louis' movements stop completely, his body tensing up and their gaze meeting. "Say it again." Louis says, and he doesn’t sound angry or disgusted. It’s almost a relief, but as Louis stares at him with the kind of intensity that it seems only Louis could muster, Harry melts back into his relaxed, sated mood.

"I'm yours, I wanna be yours, daddy." Louis crawls up between Harry's legs and kisses him passionately, Louis’ fingers run through Harry’s hair as they do. It's mostly teeth, but it doesn't matter because Harry feels _owned_ in the best way.

"Yeah, yeah okay. M' gonna fuck you so hard, baby." Louis takes off his pants and reaches to the bedside table, taking the lube from the drawer, a condom with it. He flicks the cap off and lathers his cock with it, Harry watching with his lip between his teeth. "Gonna fuck you just like this, want you to feel me." Harry groans because Louis is going to fuck him, _finally_.

Louis drags his cock between Harry's cheeks, a teasing little motion before he pulls away and slips the condom on. Then he presses inside, the movement slow, Harry assumes, so he doesn’t hurt him, and every single feeling is overwhelming in the very best way.

Sighs of pleasure and relief is heard from both of them as Louis is finally balls deep in Harry, his hip bones pressed against Harry’s arse.

“You can – you can move.” Harry says breathlessly, his eyes falling shut from the little bursts of pleasure from the small, barely there movements of Louis’ cock inside of him.

Louis reaches down to Harry's ear and whispers, "M gonna fucking ruin you, baby. Make you mine." Making a little shiver run down his spine. Then he pulls out and thrusts hard into him, making Harry cry out, his fingers clutching at the bedsheet below him.

Harry is being pushed up the bed because of Louis' hard and fast thrusts, he barely has any time to register what's happening. His entire body feels lit up with pleasure, every nerve ending on fire and its somuchtoomuch that he can barely think of anything except LouisLouisLouis.

His head is banging against the headboard so he raises his arms to push back against it. “Stay still.” Louis says, his voice firm and it makes Harry whine. He isn’t sure why it’s turning him on so much to be told what to do, to be controlled while Louis fucks him, but his head is spinning and it’s slowly getting almost cloudy.

Louis holds Harry down as he continues to thrust with as much force as he can and Harry cries out yet again. Louis leans down to leave kisses on his chest, catching his nipple and sucking on it, he licks around the nipple and bites the nub. Harry hisses, then moans, the sensation nearly pushing him over the edge "I'm- oh, fuck-" Harry screams "daddy!" as he comes, white hot streaks landing between their stomachs. He falls back against the bed and Louis thrusts into him two more times before he stills, kissing Harry’s neck as he comes, too.

He pulls out, then he walks away and Harry feels perfectly sated.

When Louis comes back with a wet cloth and wipes him off, he feels perfect.

 

It’s quiet between the two of them for a while, the only noise in the room the soft ticking of the clock. It’s still dark other than the lamp, but Harry doesn’t mind the darkness. He thinks sex is better in the dark, anyway.

“So, daddy huh?” Louis asks, but there’s no malice in his voice. Harry groans.

“That’s so embarrassing. I read it somewhere once and like –“ His cheeks are flushed. “It like. I don’t know. It kind of turned me on a little, and it just slipped out of my mouth. I don’t know.”

“I think it’s hot, baby. I don’t mind.” Harry really doesn’t know where it came from – especially since he’s always had such a strange relationship with his father, but he thinks he could stand having someone to take care of him, to help him feel complete. He really, truly thinking that Louis could be that person for him.

 

He’s lying in bed with Louis the next night, his head resting on the other man’s chest, when his phone starts ringing. It’s just shy of an hour before their Sleeping Hours are supposed to start, but when he looks at the number and sees that it’s the phone of his home calling, he feels jittery. “Oh, no.” He says softly, showing Louis the screen.

“Answer it, curly. I’ll keep quiet.” He nods and takes a deep breath before pressing the accept button and bringing the phone to his ear.

“Harry!” His mother says, a tone in her voice that he hasn’t ever recognized before. “Are you okay?”

“What – oh, yes, Mother, I’m fine. Did Father not tell you I went to Gemma’s house?”

“No, he did.” She gets quiet a moment. “I’d like to come visit the two of you, if that’s okay?”

“No, Mother.” He says, the one thing he’s learned from Louis as of yet is that he _can_ say no. “I need some time to clear my head, which I am doing with Gemma. I will be home in a few days, but I’d appreciate it if you just stayed home.” She sighs softly on the other end.

“All right, son. I will stay home, but your father has already left to come and see you. He’ll be at Gemmas in the morning.” His heart falls into his stomach, suddenly. Louis doesn’t look panicked at all, just continues stroking his fingers through his hair.

“Tell her you’re not there. It’s best she finds out from you.”

“He’s not going to find me there, Mother.” He says, voice quieter than before. The other line is silent for a long time, then she speaks.

“I had a feeling.” She says, and it sounds so truthful that he is almost taken aback by it. “Listen, Harry, I don’t know what it is that you’re doing, but I just want you to be safe, be responsible. Let your Father come see you in the morning and be there to speak with him. I know you’re angry about your friend, but he did what he thought was best. You have to understand his side of it, right?”

“Okay. Yes, Mother. I will.”

“Good night, Harry.”

“Good night.” The phone goes silent, without so much as a trace of the usual Following-friendly phrase that they always use to end phone calls. He feels this strange twisting in his stomach before Louis squeezes his wrist gently.

“Your mother used to support the Rebellion.” He says softly. “I think Gemma told you already, but she used to very, very much not support Following propaganda. She was very good friends with my mother and the two of them were free spirits.” He sighs. “When your father decided she was the one he would marry, she had to keep those thoughts to herself, pretend they never existed.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“My mum and yours both used to keep something called a _Diary._ Both notebooks were entrusted with me once my mum died and your mum had to marry your dad.” Harry nods. “She did her best to teach Gemma not to accept the Following, with the hopes that it would bring down the heir-based system. Then you were born, your Father found out about her conspiracy, and he threatened your life and Gemma’s life all the same if she were to ever be caught speaking of the Rebellion.”

“I don’t understand any of this.”

“I know, Harry. It’s a lot to take in. It’s a lot to handle. But I’ll take you to Gemmas tomorrow if you’d like so you can meet with your father.”

“If I don’t, will he kill my mother?”

“I can’t answer that, Haz. I wish I could, but I think it would be best if you went.” Harry nods, tears suddenly forming back in his eyes. None of this feels fair, none of it feels right. He shouldn’t have to worry about his Mother’s life and he certainly shouldn’t have to worry so dearly about how his father sees him.

“I should go home with him. If that’s what will protect my mother.” He says but it hurts more than it should to say. He doesn’t want to leave, he doesn’t want to leave Louis and Gemma and a life where he isn’t controlled at every angle. “Do I even have any other choice?”

“Your mother could come with me.” He says with a shrug of his shoulders. “That would be a decision that would have to be made between both of you, though. If one of you remain… I’m not sure the one that stays would live. I don’t particularly want to see you die, Curly. I’m quite fond of you. And your mother seems like she has very strong opinions against the Following.” Harry swallows hard, unsure really what to say to that. He’d never once expected his mother to have negative thoughts against the Following - it just hadn’t seemed possible. In every single aspect of his life, she’d always seemed to make sure that he was following the rules, that he was appreciating the reality of the Following.

It makes him feel a little sick, really. It doesn’t feel right that every person who matters in his life seems to be involved in one way or another with the rebellion – but it feels even worse just because he hadn’t _known._ Everyone that’s ever mattered to him is involved here and he never even knew that this organization was as big or as thriving as it is.

“I don’t want to go back with him.” He says, swallowing the lump in his throat. But if there’s any way I could get in contact with my mother and see if there’s a way she could get here, I think that would be best.

“Of course.” Louis says with a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll have Gemma take her home.” Louis puts a hand on his shoulder and Harry untenses – somewhat glad that he has that comfort in his life. There’s always been a part of him that has resented his mother – mostly for always forcing him into the box of conformity that he’s never truly felt comfortable within. But he understands now – he understands that she was doing it just to be able to protect him. If she hadn’t tried to make him a conformist, would either of them still be alive? He doesn’t want to think about those things, yet they feel like such important parts of his life. He doesn’t want to just forget what happened because it’s all so different now. He wants to remember and think about everything and know that he went through his life with the Following for a reason.

“Sleep now, love, and we’ll think of everything in the morning.”

“I hope everything turns out all right.”

“me, too.”

 

It’s three days before his mother steps foot into Louis’ home. She seems taller than he remembers her, but it takes him a moment to realize it’s because of the way she’s holding herself. Her typical dress is instead replaced with a pair of black, tight pants and a blue blouse. She looks – _fierce._ “Oh, Harry.” She says as soon as their eyes meet, then she scoops him up into her arms and hugs him tighter than she ever has.

 

Two weeks go by and nothing happens. His mother is now staying with Gemma, and she now knows about Lou and is more than happy for the two of them. Harry still stays at home – tries to help Louis as best as he can – but he feels mostly useless. He sits around most days and tries to do something useful, like clean the house or make everyone in the house something to eat (after he’d learned what a _stove_ was). Louis comes home and fucks him every night, promises him that he’s not a waste of space and tells him that everything is going to fall in place sooner rather than later, but he isn’t always so convinced.

It’s barely mid afternoon one day when he’s just lounging around on the couch, reading a book Louis had given him about the times before the Following came about, when there’s a loud, piercing ringing noise from the room beside where he’s laying.

He stands, slowly, sweat collecting on his palms as he sets the book aside on the corner table, then walks to the room where the noise is coming from. It’s making his ears ring, but it’s only just passed that point of irritating where he could get angry about it.

Then it stops – but the door flies open and four men march inside. He’s startled – frozen in place as he stares at the guns hanging heavy in their hands. He thinks this is it, this is when his father will have him publicly executed for defying the Following. This is when he’ll have to watch everyone he cares about around him die, all because he made a poor decision.

Two of them standing at the front step to the side, and Zayn is standing on the right of the back row, his eyes glazed over and his expression dull, emotionless. All four of them raise their guns immediately, all pointed at Harry and he freezes in place before slowly taking a step back.

“On your knees, rebel!” One of them shouts. Harry’s body is trembling as he glances to the side, a quick flick of his eyes before he jumps behind the couch and grabs the gun that Louis had hidden behind the couch just in case.

He’d actually laughed at him when he’d given such an ambiguous explanation, but now, as his heart jackrabits in his chest and his entire body feels tense and wired with adrenaline, he realizes exactly how smart Louis is for all of the strategic little things he plans out.

“I don’t want to hurt any of you.” He pleads, holding the gun out. He’s outmanned, but he isn’t sure if they’ve been given the command to kill or capture. He doesn’t want to think that his father would command them to kill him, but he really doesn’t know what to think anymore. His entire life has been flipped over in ways that he can’t even begin to describe, so believing in the fairness and the compassion of the Following no longer feels justified.

The man standing in the front has a bullet through his head before Harry pulls the trigger, then the second, and the third, but whoever shot them skips Zayn. He glances up to the staircase and sees Liam, eyes wide but he nods at Harry and comes down to help him.

“I don’t want to – I _can’t_ shoot him.” Liam says softly as he comes up behind Harry.

“Look at him. He’s not himself.” He’s looking into Zayn’s eyes. What was once a deep, lively brown color have now faded to a lighter shade of brown, almost grey. His body is thinner, despite having been thin before, and his hair looks like it’s dead. He nearly looks like he’s already dead on his feet, which is nothing how the other three looked.

He’s wearing all white, his collar tucked and pulled perfectly, his posture perfect and his eyes are almost empty, he realizes. It was just like the other three, except Zayn just looks like he’s been treated worse, like he’s received the blunt end of a stick that was never meant to be pleasant anyway.

Harry’s hands are trembling, but he holds the gun in his hand out right, just like he’d been taught. Zayn takes a step forward, his gun still fir in his own hand. It isn’t pointed at either him or Liam, though, so he isn’t going to shoot him.

Louis’ voice resonates somewhere in the back of his head, but he can barely hear it over the rushing of blood in his ears. He thinks it’s the memory of when Louis had told him that hesitation would only end up with him dead – but he can’t help but hesitate here. There is too much with Zayn – the first time he’d thought he’d watched him die was the most painful thing he’d ever experienced in his life and it hadn’t been his hand at the controls. He doesn’t think he’d be able to live with himself if he was the reason his friend was dead. All he can see is his friend – his _best_ friend – standing in front of him, emotionless and empty.

“Zayn,” he says softly, trying to get him to snap out of whatever trance he’s in. “Zayn, it’s me, Harry. It’s me.” His eyes are still glazed over, but he slumps over and falls to his knees, crumpling in on himself. It’s almost like a switch was turned off somewhere in his head, because when he looks up, there are tears in his eyes, but they’ve gone back to the colour that Harry remembers so well.

“oh, _fuck.”_ Zayn cries out, grabbing his hair and pulling it, then he clasps his hands over his ears. Harry drops the gun and runs over to his friend, touches his hands and tries to see what’s wrong, but he’s shaking, trembling in a way he’s never seen anyone do before. “Har-ry I’m – I _can’t.”_

“What is it, Zayn? What is it?”

“Get – Louis.” He twitches once more, and then he falls over.

He’s still breathing, thankfully, but Harry is just shocked, completely unsure of what he’s meant to do. “Stay here with him,” he says to Liam, who nods and sits on the ground beside their crumpled up friend.  So he gets up as quickly as he can and runs, runs and runs as fast as he can to where he knows Louis is in the back with Niall. “Louis!” He shouts out, nearly stumbling over his own feet.

He turns the corner and the breath leaves his lungs entirely. Louis is sat on one of the patio chairs, his legs crossed and a cup of tea in his hand. He looks almost perfectly relaxed, calm, and happy. But sat across from him is Harry’s father. He also looks content, almost right in his element despite being sat on the lime green lawn chairs that he knows he would normally complain about being unprofessional and silly. It feels like a dream – some kind of trance that he isn’t sure exactly how he got into.

The three behind them is slowly beginning to shed it’s leaves, and as a single leaf falls from the branch above, Louis and his father both turn to look at him. “Hi, Harry.” His father says, his tone dull and unexcited. “How lovely of you to join us.” There’s clear malice in his voice, the tone obviously intended to make Harry’s resolve crumple, but he refuses to let himself fall victim to these tricks yet again. It’s been too long – too much time since he’s allowed himself to do exactly that – so he refuses.

“Hi, H.” Louis says. “You can sit if you’d like.”

“Um.” He says, suddenly unsure what to say. “Actually I really – need you – _inside.”_ Louis’ eyebrows furrow just slightly, enough to create just the smallest indent of his skin between his eyebrows, which is something Harry has come to learn expresses his concern.

“Come now, anything you can tell Louis, you can tell me.” His father says, before taking a drink of his tea. “I imagine that’s something that traitors are quite skilled at: telling other parties something that shouldn’t become knowledge to their ears.” Harry feels almost frozen with that comment, but then the same anger he’s felt burning inside of him for months begins to fester again.

“See, that’s the thing.”

“Harry.” Louis says, the _shut up_ look on his face.

“It would be different if being a _traitor_ didn’t mean gaining freedom, wouldn’t it?” His father glares, icy eyes staring at him with an intensity that he’s grown used to throughout his life. Anyone else would likely crack under such a gaze, but his father’s scorn no longer brings him pain.

“Harry, sit down, please.”  Louis says, and his voice leaves no room for argument. His eyes flick back over to the house, his palms still sweaty.

“Lou –“

“I know about Zayn. I know. I – it’s okay.” He presses his lips into a thin line, then takes a deep breath. “Your father and I have been discussing the video we’ve been planning to broadcast in the next two days.” Harry’s eyes flick between the two men as he sits in the third of the lime-green lawn chairs, the one beside Louis. “We may be able to come to an agreement about it. But I want you to be here to be a part of this.” Harry blinks a few times, licks his bottom lip, and nods.

“You’re to film a video using a script I create,” His father begins, voice still dull and emotionless. “It will have the same effect, convey the same message that your video would have, but rather than having all of the explanations that you … so kindly decided to include … it will only convey the main message.”

“No.” Harry says immediately, and the tiniest little flick upwards of the corner of Louis’ mouth is more than enough to let him know that they’re thinking the same thing. “You won’t continue to censor me, nor Louis. Your censorship is wrong, and I won’t continue to tolerate it.” He says, keeping his voice as calm as his father’s.

“I agree.” Louis says, leaning forward. “Our video will be sent out, unless you would rather compromise. There will be no utilizing of a plan that benefits only you or only your image. You have no heir, your system will crumble if our message is sent out. You’re just as aware of this as Harry is, as I am, as Gemma is.” His father locks his jaw, his glare still icy.

“I suppose you’re correct.” He says. “So where does our compromise come in?”

“We won’t explain that citizens can vote for a new leader, and Harry or Gemma will take the throne once you’re dead,” Louis says, no compassion in his voice. “But for the remainder of your life, we will attempt to keep your system stable.” Harry’s father purses his lips.

“I suppose it would be best for me to never have to see the horrors of the Old Times that you will destroy the world with, Harry. I can accept that deal.” He pauses. “But I do not simply accept compromise without a price. One of your men will need to come with me.”

“No.” Harry and Louis say in unison.

“We will send out our originally planned video if you chose to attempt to take any more lives from us.” Louis says sternly. “Including Zayn.”

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever watched his father’s resolve crumble so quickly or so entirely, but watching the way his face falls and his expression – for what feels like the very first time – loses the smug expression that so often has been on his face, he knows they’ve won.

As soon as his father leaves, the two of them rush inside to aid to Zayn. He’s just sleeping, his breathing slow, but present. He curls up in bed with his friend that night for hours, even though he’s sleeping, until Louis comes to get him.

 

“We’re leaving.” He whispers, as soon as the door to Zayn’s room is closed.

“Why?” He asks, eyebrows furrowed. This place has slowly started to feel like a home – like somewhere he could get used to living. He isn’t sure what he would do if he didn’t have a place to call home. His heart speeds up.

“Your father will be home in approximately 47 minutes.” Louis says, checking his watch. “At that time, I predict he will be releasing the gas used to kill those who conspire against him into everyone who is of rebellion affilliation’s homes. Including Gemma’s.” He starts, softly. “If we don’t leave soon, we’ll all be dead.”

“Where will we go?” He asks, suddenly feeling ill. 

“There’s a place I know of, we’ll be safe there.” His hand rests over the top of Harry’s then, and he nods. He trusts him. “Go and pack everything you think you need. We’re leaving in thirty minutes. Liam and I are going to try and get everything that Zayn owns.” He nods, then turns off to where he and Louis sleep.

He has his clothing – just the few items that he’d brought with him from the manor. Everything else he’d left behind and just slowly started using of Louis’. He doesn’t think he has a possession he couldn’t go on living without – as horrible as it seems.

So he takes everything he has, clothes, shampoos, his toothbrush, and shoves them into a bag. He takes one last look at the room around him, then closes the door behind him as he walks out.

 

 

**  
**

**PART FOUR: The Finding**

He, Zayn, Liam, and Louis are all piled into one car. There are four cars total that will be travelling with them, but they all decided that it was better to split everyone up and take more than two vehicles, everyone going a different way, so if something happened to one of them the others could be aware that they were being targeted.

Liam is driving, surprisingly enough, and Zayn is still sleeping in the passenger’s seat. He and Louis are sat in the backseat of the car, but Louis almost looks distant. There’s a shocked look in his eye that Harry doesn’t know how to feel about – so he just places a hand on his thigh to try and distract him.

It’s such a strange thing seeing Louis look vulnerable, like he’s uncertain and afraid, but for the first time, Harry _isn’t._ He doesn’t feel that ever-lasting fear that he thinks he’s felt since he first met Louis. He feels safe, feels like he knows he can trust Louis’ judgement to keep him safe.

“Louis?” Liam says from the front seat.

“Yeah?” Their leader asks, finally snapping out of his daze.

“You were right. The gas monitors just went through the roof, beyond deadly levels, in all of our houses except mine. I still don’t think he’s completely aware of my involvement, though. I think they’re going to catch the houses on fire next.” Liam says hesitantly, reading something off of his tablet while the auto-driving mechanisms in the car take them to wherever they’re meant to be going.

“Stop here for a second.” Louis says quietly, but Liam immediately over rides the systems and pulls the car over. “We’re going to make your video here, Harry. Right now. And we’re going to broadcast it on the required channels for tonight.”

“Are you sure?” Liam asks, an eyebrow quirked. “I feel like we need to just lay low, make him think we’re dead for a little while so he doesn’t keep his guards up.”

“No, if we give him time, he’ll announce to the public that the rebellion has fallen.” Louis says, but his breathing is uneven and unsure. Harry can see how he’s panicking, shaking slightly.

“I think Liam might be right, Lou.” He says softly. “My father will forget we exist in a few weeks. He’ll pretend everything is all right and he’ll find someone who he thinks he could pass off as his son. The public still isn’t aware of what I look like, but if we lay low, he’ll relax for a while and then we can strike.” Louis takes a breath, and then nods.

“Yeah, okay. But here is where we need to film the video.” Harry nods. “We won’t broadcast it for two weeks.”

 

Liam turns the wheel and starts driving through the field, off the road. It’s one of the wind farm fields, full of flowers and life for the first few acres, but as they keep going, the plant life slowly begins to die. “Liam, this is the outlands. There’s radiation out here. We’re all going to get sick and –“

“Harry, it’s fine. There’s no radiation here. Not for at least a few hundred more miles.” He takes a deep breath and nods, deciding to trust Liam’s judgement. Louis still hasn’t said anything about where they’re going, so he allows it to happen. “It’s an illusion.” Liam says quietly. “We’ve been out here dozens of times. There are no flowers here because they’ve poured chemicals on the entire field, for the next mile, to give the impression of death. The life comes back very soon. It’s all an attempt to keep people away from here.”

As it turns out, Liam isn’t lying.

There are even more flowers, as high as Harry’s knees, and each gust of wind blows them side to side. The colors are so vibrant that Harry can’t help the grin, the happiness he feels deep in his chest.

“Change into this,” Louis says, handing him a little bag. It’s a simple pair of black trousers, a black button up, and his usual pair of black leather gloves. It’s a perfect contrast between the white uniforms that are expected of the Following, and it makes his heart continue to race in his chest.

He steps out into the field, then walks a few feet away from the car, before stripping out of his clothing and changing into the new ones he’s been given. Liam is setting up a camera in front of him, and Louis is standing beside Liam.

The sun is hanging low in the sky, the yellowing light behind him casting a glow over everything, creating even more contrast between the black of his clothing and the colourful life of the flowers around him.

As soon as the camera rolls, Harry speaks freely.

 

When they arrive to their new home – it turns out to be a large, Old World underground transport system. Louis had said they used to call it a _tube._ He’s not sure what that means and he’s even less sure of what the purpose of it was, but it’s shelter and he’ll take it.

“We’ve been here before, just when we were worried of your father coming after us in the past. So there are plenty of rooms that are equipped to be slept in.”

“Can we just go lay down?” Louis smiles and nods, then grabs Harry’s hand and leads him down the circular pathway of the structure. There are bricks on either side of them, the ceiling arched, and a dip in the ground with long pieces of metal with a few connecting pieces every few feet.

It’s not a very long walk before there’s another strange looking structure, more square shaped, and it’s resting on the metal rods in the dip of the ground. “What is this thing?”

“It used to be called a Train. People could travel in them, with dozens of others, for hundreds and hundreds of miles.” Harry is amazed, a little smile on his face as Louis takes him inside.

He’s created a little bedroom inside of the structure, with a few books on a shelf inside of it, and a bed shoved in the far back. There’s a couch resting against the length of the wall, and it has two little pillows thrown on top of it. It definitely looks like Louis has been here more than once. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but… I really just. I can’t handle them tonight. I’m sorry.”

Louis goes and flops down on the bed, tosses his gloves off of his hands and Harry comes over.

It’s the first time he’s seen his hands without being in the dark while they were having sex, and he takes the left one into his hand.

There’s a prominent burn scar down his entire pointer finger, and several others on each of his other fingers. His fingertips had always felt rough when he got the chance to feel them against his skin, but now he understands exactly why.

His thumb is by far the most mutilated of all of them, almost like he’d pressed his fingers against a hot surface intentionally. He’s not sure if that’s what happened or not, and he doesn’t think he’s going to ask, so instead he just presses little kisses on each of Louis’ fingers, hearing him sigh at the affection.

“Harry?” Louis asks, their eyes meeting. Louis’ eyes are such a brilliant shade of blue, the colour making Harry feel so safe, so at home.

“Hm?”

“Do you think you could fuck me tonight? I’m really just – I need to feel – I don’t know.” Harry blinks a few times, before he kisses Louis softly.

“Of course. Of course.” He’s smiling softly as Louis kisses back, threads his fingers through Harry’s hair and they lose themselves in each other. It’s always the best feeling, being with Louis. Something about him just makes him feel safe and loved and listened to in a way he’s never experienced before. Every part of him wants to give something back – wants to give Louis everything he ever could – and he’s certainly not going to complain about being able to make love to him.

Wait – make love? His heart skips a beat, just the slightest missing part of a rhythm as that feeling suddenly overwhelms him.

He loves Louis.

He hadn’t entirely realized it before, too lost in the motions and too overwhelmed in what was going on around them. But with the brightness of the blues of his eyes and the way he holds his hair in his little hand and the way he already seems so passionate, Harry realizes. He realizes that he doesn’t know what he’d do if he had to go on without Louis or what he’d do if they weren’t able to live whatever life that’s coming to them.

He loves him with everything he has, and it all comes crashing down on him so quickly that it almost feels like he’s lost his breath.

Louis strips his shirt off first, breaking the kiss for only the shortest moment, but it gives Harry enough time to take his own off, each of the buttons coming undone with a practiced ease, before they’re kissing again.

Louis undoes the button on Harry’s trousers, and Harry takes the hint easily to kick them off, taking his pants along with them. He knows when Louis gets desperate – when he _needs_ something – because he rushes. There are so few things in the day that Louis rushes, so Harry feels no shame in moving all of this along quickly.

As soon as they’re both naked, Harry kisses Louis harder. The smaller boy reaches out, fumbles around in the side drawer beside the bed, and pulls out a half empty bottle of lube. Harry laughs when Louis’ face turns a bit red. “What? I’ve spent a lot of time wanking, okay?” Louis says with a huff and Harry laughs again. He loves that he can laugh during sex with Louis – that they aren’t so worried about everything that laughing seems awkward. “Now would you hurry this along? Or should I just take care of myself?”

It’s a loaded question – a threat Harry very much doubts that Louis would go through with – but he still doesn’t want to waste any time.

He lubes up one of his fingers, then takes one of Louis’ nipples into his mouth as he presses the digit inside of Louis. He’s so tight just around one finger – but the way his breath comes out in short pants with each small movement takes away any doubt Harry might have had.

Louis is so responsive under him, every touch making him make noise. His breaths are coming out in harsh pants, even more so as Harry presses in a second finger. “God, it’s been so long since I’ve had anything in me.” Louis says quietly, his fingers still threading through Harry’s hair. “Feels good.”

“Can I eat you out?” Harry asks, a blush high on his cheeks. He’s wanted to eat Louis out for so long – but he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to with how dominant Louis has always been in bed.

“Yes, yeah, fuck.” Harry smiles, just a little, then pulls his fingers out, wipes the lube off on the top of the duvet, then presses Louis’ thighs up so they’re touching his chest. He licks a quick stripe over his hole, watching as Louis’ body twitches with the feeling of it. “Fuck.” Louis says, a drawn out whine as Harry continues, licks longer stipes up to his balls, fondles with them for a moment, and goes back to placing little kitten licks there.

It’s not long before he’s pressing his tongue in, pushing past the little ring of muscle and fucking Louis with his tongue properly.

“Oh, god. Fuck, fuck, _fuck me._ Harry – I’m gonna come if you don’t stop.” That’s finally what makes Harry pull away, then he has to take a moment to just look at Louis, to appreciate how beautiful he really is.

“Do you have a condom?” He asks, voice quiet.

“Don’t need one.” Louis says with a smile. “I kind of… actually like the feeling of it being raw.” Harry nods, then pours more lube into his hand and fists himself three times, just to make sure he isn’t going to hurt Louis.

“You good?” He asks and Louis smiles up at him.

“Yeah, go ahead.” He presses inside of Louis in one slow, but fluid motion. Louis’ mouth falls open and the tight heat all around Harry’s cock makes him moan. He moves to intertwine their fingers tightly, the feeling so intimate and so perfect that Harry feels _home._ He feels complete.

With each thrust, Louis whines and moans, his breath coming out in pants, before they both come together.

“I love you.” Harry says softly, but he feels no regret. He doesn’t fear that he’s said it too quickly and he doesn’t fear that Louis will leave him.

“I love you, too.” Louis says, a massive smile on his face, and Harry feels more than complete.

 

They stay quiet for a few weeks, after that. Louis has more time to spend with Harry than he ever has, and it all feels perfect. He hadn’t been so sure about how he’d be able to adapt before, to all of the chaos that he assumed would come with being away from real civilization, but really, it just feels like _calm._ He doesn’t have any obligations and he no longer really has to worry about what his father thinks. It feels good to be away.

His mother and Gemma spend the most time together, and he understands. He’s not entirely sure if it’s just because they’re closer, having created a bond of the Rebellion when Gemma was young, but either way, he’s fine with Louis having most of his attention.

Zayn woke up a few days into their first week of being there, and the first thing he said was something about craving pasta, which only served to make all of them laugh. He’s recovering, slowly, from the shocks that he’d endured while being held by the following.

That’s what they’d done to him. Shocked him until he was so close to death, but not quite over that brink. Then used exactly that to try and reform his brain into believing in the Following. Supposedly they didn’t just want to kill him because he was too intelligent – too well inept with technology to be a “resource they could waste”.

But as soon as Louis had said anything about needing him, about how they weren’t just going to mindlessly follow the rules of the Following, his father had deemed all of them useless.

The public media had blown up with the news that the leader of the rebellion and many of his most utilized “pawns” were dead, and then there had been a celebration within the city. There’d been two bombs set off in some of the living complexes the day before the announcements were made, and those had been blamed on them. They’d blown up the complex where Louis had lived, killed dozens of innocent people, and then done the same with Gemma’s complex. Again, he’d blamed it on them.

The public was outraged, as expected, but they needed to stay quiet. As soon as all of the news of them was no longer the main focus, they would release the video.

 

So, on the morning of the third week, that’s exactly what they did.

The video was a simple concept, Harry standing in the field with his hands dangling at his sides, the gloves obvious on his hands, marking his presence in the rebellion. He stared off for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed and hair whipping ever-so-slightly in the breeze, following the motion of the flowers surrounding him. One of the many wind-towers spun in the background, and he looked straight into the camera. “Hello, my name is Harry Styles. I’m the son of Desmond Styles, the leader of the Following. I do not expect a positive rapport with any of you, nor do I expect many of you to listen, but for every person who does, I want only to open your eyes to the corruption that my father has brought through the Following.”

He clasps his hands behind his back, then takes a deep breath. “This is the outlands, where we’ve all been warned that no life can ever exist. It has served to keep us all trapped within the borders of invisible walls, and here I am, living and breathing proof that those walls do not exist.  The Old Times that we’ve all learned about so much in our younger years were not the worst of times, but rather they were a time of freedom, of prosperity, of _choice,_ and _privacy._ They were a time where we, as humans, could make decisions for ourselves such as what jobs we want, who we are allowed to love, who we can speak to, the hours we do certain things. These are all choices that the people of the Old Times could make.”

He pauses again, looking to Louis who has a wide smile on his face. “My father is very ill. He’s dying and has been very ill for years. He was expected to live until the end of this year, where I was then to assume the throne. That is no longer going to be what happens, if you, the people of this nation chose not to allow that. There is a section of our law that states that in a situation where there is no son or daughter that wishes to take the throne, the people will then vote on their next heir to assume the throne. If your voices are heard with this demand on the night of my father’s passing, that will become truth.”

“These thoughts are terrifying and the reality of having been lied to for our entire lives is even more so. But those moments of fear are when I like to remember the incredible things of the Old Times. People in that time were not killed for simply speaking out against their governments, they were not exiled and sent into isolation for having opinions that differed from those around them. There was not one central leader that determined the life of each person in the world. I understand how you all may be feeling. Confusion and doubt were my first two prominent emotions, too, but there are somethings that don’t make sense in this world and likely never will. But the only way to truly be able to make sense of the things around us is to open our eyes a little wider, look a little harder, and see the things that maybe we didn’t ever want to see in the first place. If we all do that, we can face and bring down the corruption that the Following brings.” Harry’s hair whips to the side with a single, strong gust of wind then, and then the camera stops.

As he watches the film that’s being played for every citizen of their city, during their mandatory viewing hours, he can’t help but feel his chest tighten. He’s not sure if he got any kind of message across, or if anyone even will chose to listen to him, but if even one person is able to see something differently, to realize that their life isn’t being lived at the potential it could be, he’ll be more than satisfied with what becomes of the world.

 

Three bombs drop that night, all on the outlands. He assumes its because his father believes that they’re living there and he wants to make another attempt at killing them, but he doesn’t think much of that. He’s not sure what he could do about it, in the end.

“Liam.” He says one night, all of them around the dinner table.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’d like to make a phone call to my father. Is there any way that can be done without being tracked?”

“Well… yes. But why?”

“I don’t… I don’t know, to be honest. I suppose I want to get some sort of explanation, but I know I won’t get that. So I guess it is a rather stupid idea.”

“I have a better idea?” The taller man says with a little smirk on his face. “I could hack into the security system there, and you can see his reaction without him even knowing.”

“Actually, I think I’m fine. I really don’t – I think I need to just let him go. Let life take it’s course from here without worrying anymore.”

“Whatever you chose to do, Haz. We’re all here to support you.”

 

Louis fucks him that night, leaves bruises on his hips and lets him feel sated and relaxed in a way he hasn’t in a long time.

 

“Louis.” Liam says, walking into their room a few nights later. “Um, Styles has requested that you and Harry have a meeting call with him.” They’re both naked, tangled up in one another and half asleep, but Louis doesn’t seem bothered. Instead, he just runs his fingers through Harry’s hair once again, the soothing motion making it so much easier for Harry to relax, too.

“Make sure it’s untraceable, and then send out a message saying we can talk.”

“All right. Sorry for bothering you.” Liam leaves after that, and Louis places a little kiss on Harry’s lips.

“Can I ask about these?” Harry finally asks, running the pad of his thumb over the scars on Louis’ fingers.

“Every time that your father and I bashed heads throughout the years, meaning I got arrested, he’d have one of my finger prints burnt off. Sometimes he did it himself, with just a little lighter. Each time it got worse, longer, like he was trying to completely destroy my ability to ever fall back into normal society, even if I ever decided I wanted to. Which, I didn’t of course, but now, even if I did want to, I couldn’t.” Louis shrugs. “I suppose its somewhat symbolic, what I most resent in the world is burned off of my body physically.”

“You resent your fingertips?” Harry teases, trying to lift the heavy mood in the room. Louis smiles, and it looks genuine. He doesn’t seem like someone to be hung up on something like that, but Harry is still learning things about Louis every day – still learning the way that Louis feels vulnerable sometimes when he’s fresh out of the shower or when he wakes up and his eyes are still beautifully sleep soft, or especially when he’s just eaten something and he can feel the way his muscles have gone taut with the feeling of being full. He’d never known Louis to have these little insecurities, just in the way he holds himself in the way that he thinks he’s the most powerful person to ever exist, but each time he’s able to learn something new about him, he feels like he falls a little more in love.

“The Following runs everything about society on your identity. Your physical identity that can only come from your fingers in order to be completely unique. So now I don’t and never will have a unique identity ever again.” Louis says, but he doesn’t seem bothered, still. “I wear my gloves inside because of it, though. I think they’re ugly. I hate it.”

“I think it’s beautiful.” Harry says softly, kissing each finger as emphasis. “I think every part of you is beautiful.

“Thank you, Harry.”

 

When they meet with his father, the video is low quality, but it’s enough. Its just Louis in the frame, and he appears totally relaxed. But Harry, his mum, Liam, and Zayn are all in the room, listening to what the future holds for them.

“How you all escaped from death, I don’t know, nor do I care.” His voice is full of malice, each syllable pronounced with thick hatred. “You will all die at my hand one day. I don’t care how.” His father’s eyes have lost the gentle touch that he remembers seeing as a child. The man on the screen in front of him is not the same man he remembers loving most of his life. He’s not the same man he remembers seeing so much as a respectable figure. He isn’t sure if it’s because he’s genuinely changed or if Harry has just become less blind to the real evil he’s capable of.

“You see, Styles, I really don’t think we will.” Louis says, his voice a casual lilt. Harry believes him.

“My cities have gone to hell because of you! All you’ve managed to do is cause a panic within the people! None of them are doing their duties anymore; none of them are following the rules that were set in place to keep them safe!” He’s yelling, like he’s scared. He looks scared. But Harry knows, now, that it isn’t truly a fear for the sanctity of their people. It’s a fear of his imminent loss of power.

“You mean to keep them controlled?” Louis asks easily, a little smirk on his face. The blues of his eyes almost look firey with the passion held within them. He looks incredible, the way he holds himself with this air of confidence that makes Harry want to believe every word that comes out of his mouth. “Whatever it is that you chose to believe, your following is falling right through your fingers, and there’s nothing you can do to catch it anymore.” Louis choses that moment to end the call, and then he stands. “Tomorrow we will go to the city and gather any refugees who chose to come with us.”

“Why?” Harry asks, an eyebrow quirked.

“I have a feeling your father will begin killing more, setting examples of what happens to the rebellion and blaming it on us. So, we need to save as many people as we can before that happens.”

“Okay. I trust you.”

 

Louis was right. Terribly, horrifically right.

The entire district of New Castle has been bombed to the ground. It no longer even seems to exist, and the only thing that Harry can see for miles upon miles is destruction. Ashes lay beneath his feet and ruble of destroyed buildings surround them. Louis’ face is morphed into a look of shock and disbelief, and Harry feels sick. “How could he do this? How could _anyone_ do this?” He cries, shouts it up into the sky as he takes in the surroundings around him.

“I don’t know, Harry. I don’t know.”

They drive, taking in every living person they see and treating their wounds the best they can with their mobile medical kits. Six cars can still only take so many people, but Harry doesn’t know how he could handle seeing this happen to anymore districts. He doubts he could.

There’s so much death, so much destruction, all around them that it makes him uneasy. He feels faint, even as he watches everyone around him.

“Okay, we have thirty, that’s the maximum capacity we can take for today.” Gemma says, ushering the last person into her car. It’s a mother, a little baby held on her hip. The baby – a little girl with beautiful, chocolate coloured brown eyes, has a little doll held tightly in her hands. She’s got tear tracks on her face, but the mother has her held in her grasp and something in Harry just tells him that she’ll be okay. They’ll be okay, together.  

Gemma smiles softly at Harry, a nod of happiness sent his way as she tugs a strand of hair over her shoulder that had fallen out of her hair tie, and then she freezes, body going taut.  

Harry feels his entire world shatter as he watches the red spot form on her forehead, and then her face go blank before her body falls to the floor and she goes limp. Her eyes are still open as a little spot of blood comes from the corner of her mouth, dribbles down her chin and falls to the ground.

“ _Gemma!”_ He shouts, tears streaming down his face as Louis pushes him back into the car with haste and motions for everyone else to follow them. His heart is pounding and there’s ringing in his ears. The baby is crying again but all he feels is numb, numb at the tips of his fingers and numb in his chest. They drive and drive, but everything just feels like a blur.

It was a trap.

Everything feels like it’s all turned completely against him and he doesn’t know how to handle it. He had been so certain that everything was going to be okay that he hadn’t even considered the possibility that any of the faces he’s come so used to seeing each day could be gone. He hadn’t even thought that there could be death in war, that his father would be able to let this happen.

Louis is gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles have turned white, but Harry still can’t breathe. He feels sick.

 

Home without Gemma doesn’t feel entirely right. The new people they’re bringing in every day add life and a homely feeling to the underground, but he feels this kind of hollowness that he isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to fill. It feels so different than it had when he thought he’d lost Zayn. Losing Zayn hurt worse than anything he’d ever felt, but it was a different kind of pain. He thinks it hurts the same, for both of them, but it hurt in a different way.

 

Louis cuddles him, brings him tea and soups and tries to make him feel as good as he can, but everything makes his chest ache. Everything makes him think of Gemma – how she would take her tea with sugar and make Louis’ nose wrinkle and the way she always had to sleep with two comforters just because her feet got cold at night. Death feels so, horribly permeant and his entire world feels like it’s passing him by and he’s still stuck with his sister’s death at the front of his mind.

 

“I know it hurts, I know it hurts so, so much. But you can’t let yourself fall into a slump like this. You can grieve. We all understand that you need to grieve, but you have to move on. We all do. We all will be able to move on from this together.” Louis says one day, three weeks after Gemma died. He knows Louis isn’t being insensitive. He knows he’s trying to help and he knows that he needs to listen, but it hurts so bad.

“I want to. I don’t want to think about this anymore, I don’t want to hurt anymore. I just miss her so much.” He sniffles, wiping away a single tear that had fallen down his cheek.

“I love you so much, Harry. I hate seeing you like this.” Louis cuddles up with him, places a few soft kisses on his neck and Harry sniffles and returns the hug. “I’m here for you, whenever you need me, whenever you want me. I’m always here for you. No matter what you need.”

“Thank you, Louis. Thank you so much.”

“You never have to thank me, my love. You’re the most important thing to me right now, and nothing can ever change that.” Harry nods, and it’s strange, but he feels just the slightest amount of his pain fall away. He thinks it’s better to have people around him who accept and validate his pain. He knows Louis has experienced the death of a loved family member and he knows that this isn’t something he has to go through alone. He’s so appreciative of that, and he smiles for the first time in weeks.

 

They leave a month later.

Louis found them an Old Times city that hadn’t been destroyed by any kinds of bombs during the war, and it’s fully able to be inhabited. So, they go. They did several dozen more rounds about the city to collect anyone else who wanted to go with them, and then they just went.

It wasn’t hard to detach himself from everything that he’d once called home. As each familiar landmark goes by, he doesn’t feel anything. Instead, he just lets himself take it all in and watches from his newfound perspective. He doesn’t think anything has ever felt as easy as that.

There had been another bombing in the next district over, and it seemed like his father’s plan was simply to eliminate some of the outside districts, to keep everyone as close to him as possible. It’s a terrifying thought, to think that his father considers all of these people so disposable that he can just end their lives with the press of a button for his own selfishness.

His hands were shaking as they drove, and then they pulled over. The car comes to an abrupt stop, jolting Harry forward and Zayn grumbles, waking from his nap in the back seat.

“Do you hear that?” Louis asked, his eyebrows furrowing, voice almost panicked sounding. There was crying in the distance, hard, terrified sounding crying. This was one of the districts they had already gone through when they were looking for survivors, so the thought that they had left someone behind left an aching feeling in his chest.

Harry nodded as soon as he heard the crying, and bolted out of the car, ran towards the noise. Louis followed right behind him, concerned looks adorning both of their faces. It’s barely a hundred meters until he finds the source of the sound, and he realizes all too quickly that this is just a few feet from where he’d had to watch Gemma die.

“Oh, wow.” Harry says as he finds the source of the crying, picking up a piece of wood and tossing it to the side. It’s a baby – probably only two or three years old – and the blue of her eyes look almost the same colour as Louis’. She had been buried under the rubble, but at a first glance it didn’t seem like she had any severe injuries. A little cut on her nose, a few bruises on her hands, but otherwise, she seemed fine.

“I’m going to look for anyone else, maybe her parents, maybe I’ll find others.” Louis says, strain in his voice. Harry nods as he picks the girl up.

“I want my mummy.” The girl says as soon as Harry picks her up, and he feels an ache of sympathy in his chest.

“We’re looking for her sweetheart. What’s your name?”

“Emberly.”

“Well, Emberly, lets get you somewhere warm.” She rubs her eyes away from the tears, but otherwise seems to calm down with not being buried under the wood pieces she had been before. Harry’s heart melts.

 

He finds some crackers in his bag and lets her eat them. When Louis comes back, the frown on his face tells enough, and Harry’s heart breaks for Emberly just a little more. “Did you find my mummy?” She asks, mouth full of crackers. Louis frowns and takes a deep breath.

“I didn’t, sweetheart. I am so, so sorry.” She doesn’t seem to fully understand, and Harry doesn’t expect her to, so he assumes that Louis’ apology is more for himself than actually for the girl.

“Tha’s kay.” She says as she swallows the crumbs in her mouth. “I’ll see her tonight.” Harry isn’t entirely sure what that means, but he smiles anyway. As long as the girl is happy, he’s happy for her, too.

 

As soon as the car comes to a stop, Harry’s heart skips a beat. There are already five cars there, since they’d taken a nearly hour long detour when they’d found Emberly, and Liam is pacing, like he’s worried.

“You guys were supposed to be here an hour ago!” Liam says in place of a _hello_ as soon as Harry and Louis are both out of the car. Harry notices almost right away that he has tear tracks on his face, and the irritation immediately disappears.

“It’s okay, Li. We’re here.” He says with a smile instead. Liam pulls him into a tight hug and Harry can’t help the smile that spreads over his face. He knows the feeling, understands the way he feels after having watched Gemma disappear so easily. He’s scared every day, always waiting for the moment that someone else he cares for will disappear, too.

But, he thinks, they’re safe now. This will be their home and they will all be able to build it together; they’ll thrive here and live in the way that they should have all along. There are buildings all around, some of them taller than anything Harry’s ever seen, others just single stories high. He squints as he looks up at the tallest building and he finds that Louis is looking at it, too.

“I think that should be our center building, you know, like with all the shoppes and such.” Louis says with a little smile. “And you and I, should live at the very top.” Harry laughs, a playful eyeroll tossed in Louis’ direction.

“You’re crazy if you think I’m going that far off the ground!” He says and Louis just grins.

“Come on, let’s go!” Louis grabs his hand and pulls him into the building, and then they start on the stairs. They seem almost never ending, and he has to stop to catch his breath probably a dozen times as they make the climb, but he feels better when he sees that Louis looks just as exhausted when they reach the top.

“So, other than being scared of being this far off the ground, I never want to climb that many stairs ever again.” He says as Louis kicks open the door on the top – the thirtieth – floor. As soon as the door opens, Harry feels in awe.

Sunlight streams in through floor to ceiling windows, and a big, wide bed adorns the room to the left. There’s a large family room and a massive kitchen and his heart swells. “Well, maybe if I can get Liam to figure out how to fix the elevator, it could be worth it, yeah?”

“Yeah, maybe.” He says, a blush on his cheeks as he looks down to the floor.

 

The climb down the stairs isn’t nearly as bad, but getting to the ground and seeing everyone, hundreds of them, all sitting out on the ground, smiling and laughing and talking amongst themselves, he feels like this is where he belongs. These are the people he should have surrounded himself with all along; these are the people who, for the first time in his life, have made him feel alive.

“What do we do now?” Harry asks, turning to Louis.

“I don’t think anything else needs to change.” Louis says, wrapping an arm tightly around Harry’s waist. “I think we’re okay.”

“We will be.” Harry says, boots against the ashes that have blown in from near-by bombing sights. This was one of the few cities that hadn’t been bombed, but there still isn’t a trace of life other than the new inhabitants.

It’s not over – one day there will be more corruption and another system that will try to silence anyone who has eyes wide enough to see it. But for now, for them, it’s over. They may not be the ones fighting when it comes time again, but their voices will never be silenced again.

 

**_Five years later_ **

****

Bacon sizzles on the stove in front of Harry, the sun slowly rising above the horizon casting a warm, yellow orange glow throughout the living room. He’s made it a tradition to start each day with watching the sun rise. Every morning, the house is silent and the world around him feels so peaceful, that it gives a beautiful start to each and every day of his life.

He knows Louis and Emberly will wake shortly, and the house will come to life with soft giggles and happy going abouts of their morning routines. He’s found a rhythm with everything he’s started doing. Everything fell into place perfectly, fitting together with such a seamless ease that he thinks he’s the happiest he’s ever been.

“Good morning.” Louis says, a shocked gasp pushing past Harry’s lips as his husband wraps his arms around his waist and kisses his neck softly.

“Good morning, my love.” He says, a dimpled grin on his face as he turns around and kisses Louis softly. He’s got a light shadow of hair on his face since he hasn’t shaved in about two days, but Harry has always loved it.

Footsteps on the wood of the floor behind them pull Harry from his trance, and Emberly is standing at the refrigerator, getting a glass of juice for herself. There’s still a deep scar over her nose from the day they’d found her, but Louis says it’s her _special_ mark. Every time she gets insecure about it, Louis shows her his hands and she touches them and they always end up in a better mood together.

She just turned seven the week earlier, and the three of them had had a small day in, baking pastries before they took them out to the park and had a little picnic. Liam _had_ fixed the elevator and their sky-high home was still Harry’s absolute favorite thing in the world.

Emberly’s red hair caught the glow of the barley-above-the-horizon sun and Harry couldn’t help the extreme fondness in his chest as he looks at his daughter, the happiness blooming in his chest. “Good morning, sweetheart.” He says, kissing the top of her head as she takes a seat at the table and drinks her juice.

He takes a moment to look around and think that his life has turned out better than he had ever expected. He no longer lets himself think about the things that got him here. From the rubble, he created a life that he could never have dreamed of.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! Please take a second to [reblog the tumblr post ](http://louis-love.tumblr.com/post/159989681530/last-day-alive-by-louis-love-pairing-louisharry)if you can! And if you're feeling generous, feel free to [buy me a cup of coffee](https://ko-fi.com/A237HRB)


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